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Knowledge and experience of paramedics concerning patients with hearing and visual disability
BACKGROUND: A 2017 nationwide disability survey conducted by the General Authority of Statistics in Saudi Arabia, a sample representing the whole population living in Saudi Arabia, reported that approximately 5% and 2% of the Saudi population suffers from visual or hearing impairments, respectively....
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10433550/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37592234 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12873-023-00866-y |
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author | Alharthy, Nesrin Almotairy, Raghad Aldulhum, Rahaf Alghamdi, Albatool Aquil, Reem Alkharaan, Ghada Alsuwais, Sara Alshibani, Abdullah |
author_facet | Alharthy, Nesrin Almotairy, Raghad Aldulhum, Rahaf Alghamdi, Albatool Aquil, Reem Alkharaan, Ghada Alsuwais, Sara Alshibani, Abdullah |
author_sort | Alharthy, Nesrin |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: A 2017 nationwide disability survey conducted by the General Authority of Statistics in Saudi Arabia, a sample representing the whole population living in Saudi Arabia, reported that approximately 5% and 2% of the Saudi population suffers from visual or hearing impairments, respectively. Patients with these disabilities find it difficult to convey their medical history and chief complaints to paramedics, causing communication breakdowns that can lead to misinterpretation of patient history, leave medical problems unaddressed, and reduce patient engagement and autonomy. We aimed to assess paramedics’ knowledge, attitude, and level of confidence when managing patients with visual or hearing problems. METHODS: Descriptive cross-sectional design was used to report the knowledge and experience of paramedics towards patients with hearing/vision disabilities in Saudi Arabia. A validated questionnaire was distributed to our study sample of paramedics in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia between 01, July 2020 and 31, December 2020. Ethical approval was obtained from King Abdullah International Medical Research Center. RESULTS: Ninety-seven participants completed the survey. Male paramedics accounted for 77% of the study participants; 24% were Saudi Red Crescent employees, and 57% were 20–25 years old. Most participants encountered 1–5 cases of patients with hearing disability (55%) as well as patients with visual disability (48%) during their career. Taking medical history was a challenge indicated by 42% of the participants, and 30% reported difficulties in explaining procedures. Of the participants, 44% were confident in handling patients with hearing or visual impairment. There was a strong association between participants who indicated higher confidence levels and those who had obtained specific training for patients with hearing or visual impairments. CONCLUSION: Assisting patients with hearing or visual impairments is challenging, especially during an emergency. We recommend programs that provide specific training in handling hearing or visually impaired patients to close the communication gap in emergent medical situations handled by paramedics or other emergency medicine doctors and nurses. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12873-023-00866-y. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10433550 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-104335502023-08-18 Knowledge and experience of paramedics concerning patients with hearing and visual disability Alharthy, Nesrin Almotairy, Raghad Aldulhum, Rahaf Alghamdi, Albatool Aquil, Reem Alkharaan, Ghada Alsuwais, Sara Alshibani, Abdullah BMC Emerg Med Research BACKGROUND: A 2017 nationwide disability survey conducted by the General Authority of Statistics in Saudi Arabia, a sample representing the whole population living in Saudi Arabia, reported that approximately 5% and 2% of the Saudi population suffers from visual or hearing impairments, respectively. Patients with these disabilities find it difficult to convey their medical history and chief complaints to paramedics, causing communication breakdowns that can lead to misinterpretation of patient history, leave medical problems unaddressed, and reduce patient engagement and autonomy. We aimed to assess paramedics’ knowledge, attitude, and level of confidence when managing patients with visual or hearing problems. METHODS: Descriptive cross-sectional design was used to report the knowledge and experience of paramedics towards patients with hearing/vision disabilities in Saudi Arabia. A validated questionnaire was distributed to our study sample of paramedics in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia between 01, July 2020 and 31, December 2020. Ethical approval was obtained from King Abdullah International Medical Research Center. RESULTS: Ninety-seven participants completed the survey. Male paramedics accounted for 77% of the study participants; 24% were Saudi Red Crescent employees, and 57% were 20–25 years old. Most participants encountered 1–5 cases of patients with hearing disability (55%) as well as patients with visual disability (48%) during their career. Taking medical history was a challenge indicated by 42% of the participants, and 30% reported difficulties in explaining procedures. Of the participants, 44% were confident in handling patients with hearing or visual impairment. There was a strong association between participants who indicated higher confidence levels and those who had obtained specific training for patients with hearing or visual impairments. CONCLUSION: Assisting patients with hearing or visual impairments is challenging, especially during an emergency. We recommend programs that provide specific training in handling hearing or visually impaired patients to close the communication gap in emergent medical situations handled by paramedics or other emergency medicine doctors and nurses. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12873-023-00866-y. BioMed Central 2023-08-17 /pmc/articles/PMC10433550/ /pubmed/37592234 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12873-023-00866-y Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Alharthy, Nesrin Almotairy, Raghad Aldulhum, Rahaf Alghamdi, Albatool Aquil, Reem Alkharaan, Ghada Alsuwais, Sara Alshibani, Abdullah Knowledge and experience of paramedics concerning patients with hearing and visual disability |
title | Knowledge and experience of paramedics concerning patients with hearing and visual disability |
title_full | Knowledge and experience of paramedics concerning patients with hearing and visual disability |
title_fullStr | Knowledge and experience of paramedics concerning patients with hearing and visual disability |
title_full_unstemmed | Knowledge and experience of paramedics concerning patients with hearing and visual disability |
title_short | Knowledge and experience of paramedics concerning patients with hearing and visual disability |
title_sort | knowledge and experience of paramedics concerning patients with hearing and visual disability |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10433550/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37592234 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12873-023-00866-y |
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