Concept Map Prebriefing Versus Traditional Prebriefing in Ischemic Stroke Management amongst EMS Students of Pune, India

Introduction: Worldwide, stroke is the commonest cause of mortality after coronary artery disease. Majority of the stroke cases present in Emergency Department (ED). Therefore, the clinical acumen of medical staff in pre-hospital and ED in assessment of stroke is can significantly reduce the morbidity and mortality. Prebriefing helps to build confidence before exposure to the clinical scenario. This can prove to be very helpful in ischemic stroke assessment.

Objective: To study difference in competency performance amongst EMS students who participate in concept Map Prebriefing versus Traditional Prebriefing in clinical simulation scenario on Ischemic Stroke Management.

Methodology: Seventy-two PGDEMS students were chosen for the study by convenience sampling. The students were divided into two groups, A and B of 36 each after matching for age, sex and previous course grades. On the day of Simulation session, Group A was administered traditional prebriefing while Group B underwent Concept Map Prebriefing on the topic of Ischemic Stroke. The prebriefing concluded with narration of a case of Ischemic stroke. Each group was further subdivided into 6 smaller groups for ease of conducting assessment. A structured debriefing for each subgroup lasting for 20 minutes followed the Simulation session. The competency performance was scored using The LAPSS survey. The score obtained by a group could range from 0 to 8.

Discussion: The students prebriefed by the concept map methodology scored better than their peers on a number of parameters including key points in history taking. The above findings emphasize the role of comprehensive concept map prebriefing in impacting the student performance as measured by the LAPSS survey.

Conclusion: Traditional prebriefing orients the student to simulation environment but is found to be inferior to concept map prebriefing in terms of improving competency performance assessment in ischemic stroke.