Determination and Comparison of Short-term Effectiveness of Three Methods Used for Recognition of Arrhythmias in People With Different Degrees of Medical Training (Advanced Life Support Workshop Participants-ALS): Randomized Controlled Educational Experiment.

Universidad Nacional de Colombia76 enrolled

Overview

Background: Arrhythmia recognition is a fundamental skill for the provider of advanced life support (ALS). Acquire it is difficult, leading to the birth of systematic methods in an attempt to simplify and optimize, however, it has not compared the effectiveness among the three methods with more evidence among professionals with varying degrees of medical training (ALS Workshop participants). Objective: To determine and compare the effectiveness of the three most widespread and with more evidence systematic methods (10, 6 and 4 steps) for the recognition of arrhythmias in a short-term and its perceived easiness among ALS workshop participants. Methods / design: Educational Cuasi experimental trial with pre and post intervention measurement, blind, with randomized allocation, in 84 ALS workshop participants. Three systematic methods to recognize arrhythmias will be taught and their effectiveness to diagnose in a short-term and its perceived easiness will be measured and compared.

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Enrollment

Conditions

Arrhythmias

Interventions

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

percentage of subjects who achieve scores greater than or equal to 30

For comparison of the percentage of subjects who achieve scores greater than or equal to 30 (approving minimum score) in the practical test of arrhythmia's diagnosis, the test will be the Chi-square (X2), which allows to compare proportions in more than two groups; or Fisher's exact test, submitted that one of the expected values is less than 5.

Time frame: 15 minutes after delivered the intervention

Secondary Outcomes

change in the average scores in the groups

In order to compare the magnitude of the change in the average scores in the groups trained with each of the 3 methods, both in the the theoretical and practical test of diagnosis of arrhythmias; ANOVA or Mann-Whitney's U, according to the distribution of variables was performed. These comparisons are made to the post intervention measurements and Bonferroni correction for alpha according to the number of comparisons will perform. The analysis of the collected data will be using STATA 10.0 software.