Effectiveness of e-learning to develop the ability to recognise and manage stroke

Stroke is one of the leading causes of disability and death, with ‘approximately 100 000 people suffering a stroke within the UK each year’, which equates to around ‘one every 5 minutes’ (Stroke Association, 2018).

The condition has numerous outcomes, including disability and death, which affect family, carers and healthcare providers as well as the patients themselves, and it can recur (Ferguson et al, 2016). This has resulted in a continued focus on increasing national programmes to develop clinical knowledge around the prevention, identification and management of stroke and stroke-like symptoms (Stroke Association, 2015).

Through a variety of campaigns (e.g. FAST), the intention is that everybody should have a basic understanding of early warning signs to help identify a potential stroke and reduce its impact (Stroke Association, 2015; 2018). This then allows early assessment by health professionals such as ambulance staff to ascertain whether a patient is presenting with a stroke or an alternative complaint through reference to current guidelines, such as the Joint Royal Colleges Ambulance Liaison Committee (JRCALC) guidelines by the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) (2019), and those from the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) (2019) and the Royal College of Physicians (2016). To facilitate enhanced assessments and initiate a treatment pathway, health professionals must be able to identify the key signs and symptoms (Wolf et al, 2016).