The effect of pre-hospital trauma management training program on time indices of emergency medical services

Background and Aim: Time is the main determinant factor for survival chance in trauma patients. Therefore, this study was performed to determine the effect of management programs in trauma patients on time indices of pre-hospital emergency missions. Materials and Methods: In this controlled field trail, 60 pre-hospital emergency technicians were divided into two test and control groups, by means of stratified random sampling. Pre-hospital trauma management training programs which had been formulated on the basis of available national and global standards were implemented, by using a combination of training lecture and simulation methods for the test group. Research tools were demographic questionnaire and standard pre-hospital emergency care reporting form. Mean values for time indices were determined before, after, and also one month after intervention in both groups. Using SPSS 19, data were analyzed by independent t-test, Repeated Measures Analysis of Variance, and Bonferroni’s follow up test. Results: Mean scene time in the test group (one month after intervention) was significantly lower than that in the control group (p=0.05). Also, mean and standard deviation of scene time in the test group decreased from 17.6±5.5 minutes (before intervention) to 12±3.8 minutes (one month after intervention), which showed a significant reduction (p˂0.001). Conclusion: According to the results, performance of pre-hospital trauma management training programs can lead to reduction of scene time in pre-hospital emergency missions. Therefore, considering the role of reduced scene time in the prognosis of trauma patients, integration of the periodic training of the trauma management programs into pre-hospital emergency training programs seems necessary.