References
Development of clinical and inter-personal skills to support people living with dementia
Abstract
There is a lack of understanding on how paramedic students develop their knowledge, skills and attitudes to support people living with dementia and their families. This original qualitative study applied focus groups to explore paramedic students' perspectives. First and third year paramedic students were recruited from two ambulance service providers in the South of England. Data were collected during January and February 2017 and three themes emerged: 1) challenges of communication 2) students' negative emotional response, and 3) lack of social care and pathways. Paramedic students did not discuss person-centred approaches to support people with dementia; however they all acknowledge the impact of dementia as unique to each person, their family and situation. Undergraduate paramedic education needs to support the development of students' communication and interpersonal skills. Both university lecturers and placement educators need to provide consistent, clear, detailed information to enable students to support and care for people with dementia and their families.
Globally many countries have developed the role of the paramedic through education and undergraduate programmes, which vary within and across countries (Colver et al, 2016; Hou et al 2013; Hickson et al, 2015). In England national guidelines for paramedic education have been implemented (Brown et al, 2016), alongside national standards for paramedic professionalism and a fit to practice register (College of Paramedics, 2015; Heath and Care Professionals Council, 2016).
Paramedic programmes need to respond to the changing needs of society. The world population of people aged 60 years and over has been predicted to increase by 56% between 2015 and 2030 (United Nations, 2015). Dementia is not restricted to those within this age group; however the risk of developing dementia doubles every five years from the age of 65 (Corrada et al, 2010; Prince et al, 2016). An analysis of four days of data from two counties in England demonstrated that 21.5% of ambulance call outs were to patients with a diagnosis of or documentation suggesting dementia or cognitive impairment (Buswell et al, 2016).
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