Educational Needs Assessment of Emergency Centers Staff and Emergency Nurses of Teaching Hospitals Affiliated to Isfahan University of Medical Sciences

Educational programs are designed to meet learners’ educational needs. Therefore, needs assessment is the first step in educational planning which could increase learners’ participation in designing educational programs and improve the quality of programs. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to describe the educational needs of Isfahan emergency centers staff and emergency nurses of teaching hospitals affiliated to Isfahan University of Medical Sciences (IUMS) in 2012.
The statistical population of this cross-sectional survey consisted of all the emergency nurses of teaching hospitals affiliated to IUMS and Isfahan emergency centers staff. Totally, 310 people were selected through census method. The data was collected through a valid and reliable researcher-made questionnaire. Descriptive statistical tests were used to analyze the data.
The means and SDs of the subjects’ age, work experience and work experience in emergency units were 33.3±7.1, 9.76±7.4 and 5.24±4.63 respectively. Moreover, the means and SDs of the five dimensions of educational needs including management, relationships, appraisal skills, equipment and practical skills were 5.28±2.1 (total=10), 6.1±2.2 (total=10), 8.1±3 (total=15), 2.6±1.3 (total=5) and 63.2±19.8 (total=75) respectively.
It is necessary to take into account the educational needs of the emergency units staff which include five main categories namely management, relationships, appraisal skills, equipment and practical skills. Future research employing both qualitative and quantitative methods is recommended to examine each of these dimensions in greater depth.