Purpose: Acute pain is a prevalent symptomatology in prehospital emergency care. Although inadequate assessment and treatment of acute pain are associated with various complications, about 43% of adults suffering from pain are undertreated. This phenomenon is poorly studied, and limited data are available in the literature. The objective was to investigate the pain management in a prehospital emergency health-care setting, verifying pain assessment, pharmacological treatment adherence and the effectiveness of pain relief therapy. Patients and Methods: A retrospective observational study was conducted in a sample including all adults treated by the professionals of nurse-staffed ambulances and medical cars in an Italian Emergency Medical Services (EMS) from 1 January 2019 to 31 May 2019. We collected both demographic information and Numeric Rating Scale scores, which evaluated presence and intensity of pain, from the EMS paper forms. All analyses were performed using SPSS, version 27. Results: The study sample was composed of 629 people: 310 males (49%) and 319 females (51%), with an average age of 64.2± 22 years (range 18– 108). Pain information was collected in 75.5% (n = 475) of our sample; among them 222 patients (46.7%) suffered from pain. We recorded that 79.7% (n = 177) of the subjects with pain received no pharmacological treatment, and in almost all of the treated cases they did not adhere to the analgesia algorithm in use. Among those who were pharmacologically treated, pain statistically significantly decreased in intensity, from before to after, in both emergency vehicles (nurse-staffed ambulances pre m = 8.36± 0.9 vs post m = 4.18± 2.2, p< 0.001; medical cars pre m = 7.25± 1.7 vs post m = 3.50± 2.6, p< 0.001). Subsequently, pain was only re-ascertained in 24.3% of subjects. Conclusion: Our findings confirm that pain is a prevalent symptom in prehospital patients, especially in the younger age range, but that it remains an underrecognized, underestimated, and undertreated symptom with the risk of causing worse health outcomes.

Background: The Satisfaction with Simulation Experience scale is a 5-point Likert scale that measures students’ satisfaction in medium and high-fidelity simulation scenarios. This study aims at investigating the psychometric properties of the Satisfaction with Simulation Experience - Italian Version scale. Methods: A multi-centre cross-sectional study was conducted. The scale was administered to a sample of 266 undergraduate nursing students from two Italian universities after attending a medium- and high-fidelity simulation session in November 2022 and March 2023. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and item-total correlation were sorted out to assess internal consistency and reliability. The test-retest method was used as a measure of scale stability over time as well as the confirmatory factor analysis to verify construct validity. Results: The Cronbach’s alpha value was 0.94 for the overall scale, indicating excellent reliability, and it was 0.84 or higher for each subscales, indicating good reliability. A large correlation coefficient of 0.60 or higher was found between each item and its subscale and between each item and the overall scale score. A medium test-retest correlation coefficient was found for most items (r > 0.30). The confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the factorial structure found in the original study. Conclusions: Satisfaction is an important teaching and learning quality indicator along with the achievement of learning outcomes in simulation. The Satisfaction with Simulation Experience - Italian Version scale showed good reliability and validity; therefore, it could be a useful tool to assess simulation impact in Italian nursing students. The extensive utilization of the Satisfaction with Simulation Experience scale, along with its various validated versions, could facilitate assessing satisfaction in simulation across diverse contexts and enable comparisons of findings across studies in different countries.

Background: Little is known about what happens when patients and caregivers are involved in an academic setting as co-teachers and how healthcare professionals approach a new model of partnership-based teaching. This study aimed to explore the learning and behavioural patterns of a group of healthcare professionals who were learning to teach with patients and caregivers as co-teachers in a post-graduate course. Methods: A focused ethnographic study involving 11 health professionals was conducted. Data were collected through participatory observation during the course, individual semi-structured interviews, and a follow-up focus group. Taxonomic analysis was performed. Results: Three categories were identified: ‘group’, ‘role of narration’ and ‘applying co-teaching with patients and caregivers ’. Specifically, heterogeneity, absence of hierarchies, and balanced relationships characterised the group dynamic and promoted partnership. Narration played a key role both in learning and in healthcare professionals’ relationship with patients and caregivers and promoted emotional skills and self-awareness. Project planning and lessons simulations were essential aspects of the implementation process. Conclusions: This focused ethnography helped further understanding of the context of a specific project involving patients and caregivers as co-teachers in healthcare professional education. The development of emotional skills and self-awareness are the main learning patterns of co-teaching, and interprofessionalism and balanced relationships are the basis of the behavioural patterns. These patterns facilitated the involvement of patients and caregivers in health education.

Patient involvement in interprofessional education is a novel approach to building collaborative and empathic skills in students. However, this area of teaching is lacking in rigorous studies. The project aimed to evaluate whether an interprofessional education intervention in partnership with patient educators (IPE-PE) would increase readiness for interprofessional learning and empathy in health sciences students. This is the report of a didactic innovation project. Participants included 310 undergraduate health sciences students who took part in an IPE-PE intervention. Data were collected before and after the training, using the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS) and the Jefferson Scale of Empathy-Health Professions Student version (JSE-HPS). Only at the end of the intervention, a data collection form was administered to explore the value of the patient educator in the training and to investigate the socio-demographic variables. The mean age of participants was 21±3.2 SD years and 76% were female. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test showed significant changes from before to after the IPE-PE in the RIPLS total score (m=42.7±5.8 SD vs 44.62±5.9 SD, z=-4.168, P<0.001) and in the JSE-HPS total score (m=112.7±12.5 SD vs 116.03±12.8 SD, z=-4.052, P<0.001). Our students reported that IPE-PE had helped them to become more effective healthcare team members, to think positively about other professionals, and to gain an empathic understanding of the perspective of the person being cared for. The results of the project confirm that the intervention promoted the development of empathy, fostering a better understanding of the patient-centred perspective. (www.actabiomedica.it)