• Richard J Salway, Trenika Williams, Camilo Londono, Patricia Roblin, Kristi Koenig, and Bonnie Arquilla.
• New York Health and Hospitals, Office of Quality and Safety, New York, New York, USA.
• Prehosp Disaster Med. 2020 Aug 1; 35 (4): 364-371.

IntroductionPhysicians' management of hazardous material (HAZMAT) incidents requires personal protective equipment (PPE) utilization to ensure the safety of victims, facilities, and providers; therefore, providing effective and accessible training in its use is crucial. While an emphasis has been placed on the importance of PPE, there is debate about the most effective training methods. Circumstances may not allow for a traditional in-person demonstration; an accessible video training may provide a useful alternative.HypothesisVideo training of Emergency Medicine (EM) residents in the donning and doffing of Level C PPE is more effective than in-person training.Null HypothesisVideo training of EM residents in the donning and doffing of Level C PPE is equally effective compared with in-person training.MethodsA randomized, controlled pilot trial was performed with 20 EM residents as part of their annual Emergency Preparedness training. Residents were divided into four groups, with Group 1 and Group 2 viewing a demonstration video developed by the Emergency Preparedness Team (EPT) and Group 3 and Group 4 receiving the standard in-person demonstration training by an EPT member. The groups then separately performed a donning and doffing simulation while blinded evaluators assessed critical tasks utilizing a prepared evaluation tool. At the drill's conclusion, all participants also completed a self-evaluation survey about their subjective interpretations of their respective trainings.ResultsBoth video and in-person training modalities showed significant overall improvement in participants' confidence in doffing and donning PPE equipment (P <.05). However, no statistically significant difference was found in the number of failed critical tasks in donning or doffing between the training modalities (P >.05). Based on these results, the null hypothesis cannot be rejected. However, these results were limited by the small sample size and the study was not sufficiently powered to show a difference between training modalities.ConclusionIn this pilot study, video and in-person training were equally effective in training for donning and doffing Level C PPE, with similar error rates in both modalities. Further research into this subject with an appropriately powered study is warranted to determine whether this equivalence persists using a larger sample size.

14 keywords...

hide…