Abstract
We developed a self-administered safety module (SM) to instruct respiratory care (RC) employees in their responsibilities during emergency situations. The SM has five phases—a pretest (PRE), statement of module objectives, presentation of information in outline form, a posttest (POST), and review of the POST. This training meets the specific requirements outlined by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.
Methods
To evaluate the effectiveness of the SM, we compared test scores among three groups of employees: those with no previous ex-posure to safety education in the hospital setting (G1), those with exposure at other institutions (G2), and those with exposure at this institution (G3). Our goal was to equalize the POST scores among the three groups. Using a 1-way analysis of vari-ance, we tested to find whether the PRE scores were different from one another and repeated the test for the POST scores. We tested for within-group differences, PRE vs POST, using paired t tests.
Results
Previous exposure to hospital safety man-agement was associated with significantly higher PRE scores (p < 0.001). No previ-ous exposure was associated with the greatest improvement (POST vs PRE), al-though all groups experienced significant improvement (p < 0.05). The POST scores for G1 were significantly lower than those of either G2 or G3 (p < 0.001). However, they were still adequate to pass (>80%).
Conclusion
This self-administered SM is an effective and efficient method of educating RC personnel, regardless of entry-level knowledge, in safety issues and, although the POST scores were not sta-tistically equalized, these scores were all sufficient to pass. Further evaluation of this process will include assessment of knowledge retention among employees.
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