Abstract
Introduction: The Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) is the standard measure used to quantify the level of consciousness of patients who have sustained head injuries. Rapid and accurate GCS scoring is essential.Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of a GCS teaching video shown to prehospital emergency medical services (EMS) providers.Methods: Participants and setting-United States, Mid-Atlantic region EMS providers. Intervention-Each participant scored all of the three components of the GCS for each of four scenarios provided before and after viewing a video-tape recording containing four scenarios. Design-Before-and-after single (Phase I) and parallel Cohort (Phase II). Analysis-Proportions of correct scores were compared using chi-square, and relative risk was calculated to measure the strength of the association.Results: 75 participants were included in Phase I. In Phase II, 46 participants participated in a parallel cohort design: 20 used GCS reference cards and 26 did not use the cards. Before observing the instructional video, only 14.7% score all of the scenarios correctly, where as after viewing the video, 64.0% scored the scenarios results were observed after viewing the video for those who used the GCS cards (p = 0.001; RR = 2.0; 95% CI = 1.29 to 3.10) than for those not using the cards (p <0.0001; RR = 10.0; 95% CI = 2.60 to 38.50).Conclusions: Post-video viewing scores were better than those observed before the video presentation. Ongoing evaluations include analysis of longterm skill retention and scoring accuracy in the clinical environment.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 142-146 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | Prehospital and Disaster Medicine |
Volume | 17 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2002 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Glasgow Coma Scale
- audio-visual aids
- educational model
- emergency medical services
- instruction
- trauma
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Emergency Medicine
- Emergency