PHYSICAL LITERACY OF URGENT HEALTH CARE STUDENTS AND ITS POSSIBLE IMPACT ON THE QUALITY OF THE RESCUER'S WORK

Abstract

Physical knowledge in rescuer´s practice is often neglected. Usually, students of Urgent Health Care study program are admitted to study on the base of the results of physical fitness test and/or biology knowledge. Biophysics is taught at universities usually only in the 1st semester together with radiology or biochemistry. The aim of study was to find out the level of physical literacy of Urgent Health Care students and its possible impact on the quality of the rescuer's work. Original didactic test for detection of physical literacy with the choice of one correct answer was used. There were 20 tasks in accordance with State Educational Program for grammar school [1,2]. Eleven of them were aimed at solving the problems of simple health care tasks (positioning of the patient, medication administration and measurement of vital signs). Other nine tasks were focused on elementary physical knowledge (centre of gravity, physical properties of liquids, conversion of physical units, reading from calibrated scale, sound and pressure). The design of test supposed using similar knowledge to solve both parts of the test. Minimal 60 % of correct answers were established for success rate. Results were confronted with Decree of the Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic on the scope of practice in some health professions [3]. The test was written by 177 the 1st and 2nd year of Urgent Health Care students from four Slovak universities. The overall success ability of the students was in average (57±14) % of correct answers. In the part of test about health care, students correct answered in average (58±17) % questions. The most demanding tasks were focused on reading information from graph (temperature curve of patient) and detection of liquid volume in calibrated cylinder. The average success of physical part of test was (57±18) %. The most problematic tasks for students were aimed on osmosis, surface tension and conversion of volume physical units. Our results show, that basic physical knowledge of Urgent Health Care students are inadequate. In the confrontation our results with the scope of rescuer´s work in Emergency Health Service determined by Ministry of Health [3], the most serious problem is lack of skills in obtaining required information from graph, correct reading of the scale and accurate drugs dosage in the context of physical properties of liquid. The partial elimination of this phenomenon could occur by optimizing of biophysical curricula in Urgent Health Care study program and modify of teaching with an emphasis on interdisciplinary relations between biology and physics at secondary schools [4]. This work is supported by Grant project KEGA 026UK-4/2017.