An Evaluation of Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Personnel Knowledge About Crisis Resource Management and Perspectives of Educators About Inclusion of Crisis Resource Management in the Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Curriculum

Purpose: To evaluate the knowledge of pre-hospital emergency care personnel (PECP) in South Africa on the principles, practice of crisis resource management (CRM), and obtain emergency medical care (EMC) educators’ views on the teaching and learning of CRM skills in the pre-hospital EMC curriculum. Methods: This research was designed as an exploratory study that used a semi-structured questionnaire administered to 2000 PECP and focus group discussion (FGD) with 19 emergency care educators. Chi-squared test and Cramér’s V were used to examine the existence and the strength of an association between cross-tabulated variables. Responses to open-ended questions, as well as the data generated by the FGD, were analysed qualitatively using iterative inductive coding to identify themes. Results: A response rate of 76% was obtained for the survey. Findings are that the majority (64.5%) of the PECP were not familiar with CRM, though familiarity varied significantly across cadres of PECP (p <0.001). EMC educators reported that the concept of CRM must be thoroughly researched and developed in the emergency medical service (EMS) context before it is included in the EMC curriculum. The educators reported that early introduction of CRM in the EMC curriculum will have a positive effect on students’ professional development. Difficulties with assessment, knowing what to teach, and lack of universally accepted guidelines or teaching modalities are some of the challenges identified by EMC educators in relation to teaching CRM in the EMC curriculum. Conclusion: The findings of this study provide new insights into PECP’s knowledge and EMC educators’ views on the teaching and learning of CRM in the EMC curriculum. This study highlights that more research is needed to develop an EMS CRM curriculum. Investigation into the development of a teaching and learning framework for CRM in EMC education could be the focus of future studies.