Educational needs assessment of general physicians employed in 24-h urban and rural health centers about emergency patients' management in Isfahan Province

Introduction: Training and updating human resources are the duties of any dynamic organization, and physicians require continuous training for providing appropriate services, for their first contact levels with emergency patients. The aim of this study is to determine the educational needs of general physicians about managing emergency patients. Materials and Methods: The study is of descriptive/cross-sectional (needs assessment) type, and the research population includes 552 physicians working in 24-h urban and rural health centers, and the needs assessment was done by Telstar method, using the census and three-stage Delphi standard technique. The tool for collecting the data was a questionnaire with an open question, validity of which was approved by the specialists. Data analysis was done by calculating the summation of the scores of each need and prioritizing that in SPSS version 20 software. Results: The agreed priorities of training needs of the physicians include training about contacts with emergency cardiac patients, myocardial infarction diagnosis and facing with that, primary cardiopulmonary resuscitation, children's emergency, pregnancy emergency, electrocardiogram and its interpretation, intoxication and dealing with that, dealing with patients affected by reducing the level of consciousness, respiratory emergency cases, respectively, and the lower rated priorities include documentation, dealing with radioactive contamination, and relational skills (with the patients and their companions). Conclusion: It is hereby proposed for the training regarding "management of emergency patients" to be prioritized in the physicians on-the-job-training programs, in continuous health and health networks for the physicians in the universities, by the related authorities, for designing and executing training and relearning programs.