Assessing Educational Needs of Emergency Medical Technicians

Currently improvement of human resources is considered a major strategy for success of the organizations and rapid development of scientific and research fields emphasizes its importance. Medical emergencies are a part of care and treatment that has not been immune to these changes. Medical emergency centers need education and improvement of human resources to enhance the quality of their service, which in turn require assessment of needs. The present study was carried out aiming to assess the educational needs of pre-hospital emergency technicians.
The present observational study in medical emergencies center of Kerman, Iran, was carried out using convenience sampling. The tool used for gathering data was a questionnaire designed by the researcher, which consisted of 39 questions that evaluated educational needs of emergency medical technicians from 3 aspects of knowledge, skill, and attitude based on the Likert scale.
A total of 170 individuals with the mean age of 31.21 ± 5.51 years participated in the study, all of which were male. The most important educational need of the emergency technicians regarding knowledge was “knowledge and information regarding drugs and probable side effects of using them” with 25.9%; in the skill item, it was “ability and skill of performing endotracheal intubation” with 28.8%; and in the attitude section, it was “taking interest in participating in training courses during service to improve their knowledge regarding practical skills” with 71.8%.
Based on the findings of the present study, most medical emergency technicians expressed that their need regarding knowledge is “drug information and their side effects” from skills aspect, it is “ability and skill of performing endotracheal intubation” and from the aspect of attitude, it is “taking interest in participating in training courses during service to improve their knowledge regarding practical skills”.