Interprofessional simulation-based team-training and self-efficacy in emergency medicine situations

ABSTRACT

Teamwork quality has been shown to influence patient safety, and simulation-based team-training (SBTT) is an effective means to increase this quality. However, long-term effects are rarely studied. This study aims to investigate the long-term effects of interprofessional SBTT in emergency medicine in terms of global confidence, self-efficacy in interprofessional communication and in emergency medicine situations. Newly graduated doctors, nurses, auxiliary nurses, and medical and nursing students participated. Four emergency medicine scenarios focused on teamwork according to the A-B-C-D-E-strategy. All participants increased their global confidence from 5.3 (CI 4.9–5.8) before to 6.8 (CI 6.4–7.2; p < .0001) after SBTT. Confidence in interprofessional communication increased from 5.3 (CI 4.9–5.8) to 7.0 (CI 6.6–7.4; p < .0001). Students had the greatest gain. The self-efficacy following the A-B-C-D-E strategy increased from 4.9 (CI 4.4–5.3) to 6.6 (CI 6.2–7.0). Again, students had the steepest increase. Newly graduated doctors achieved a superior increase in global confidence as compared to nurses and auxiliary nurses (p < .0001). Their propensity to recommend SBTT to colleagues was 9.9 (CI 9.8–10.0). The positive effects were sustained over a six-month period, indicating that interprofessional SBTT had a positive impact on competence development, and a potential to contribute to increased team quality in emergency medicine care.

KEYWORDS:

• Interprofessional communication
• simulation-based team-training
• emergency medicine management
• medical education

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge all participants for giving their time to take part in this study.

Disclosure statement

AK and JK took initiative to the study and designed it together with ML, JA and PH. Then the questionnaires and the SBTT scenarios were developed, and pilot tested. RMS and CW participated in the design of intervention, data collection and acted as instructors during the SBTT. CA and JW participated in student recruitment, development and data collection of the student SBTT. PH performed the validation and the analyses of the data. AK, JK and PH drafted the main parts of the manuscript and all authors provided a critical review of the manuscript.

Data sharing statement

Additional data can be available by the corresponding author.

Ethics approval

Permission to carry out the study was given by the Regional Ethical Review Board, Stockholm Sweden, diary number 2013/1538-31.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Stockholm County Council, Sweden (ALF project) [20140601].