Page 42 - JSOM Spring 2024

FIGURE 2 Ukrainian healthcare professionals inspect donor Results
collection equipment. (Photo credit: Tom Balfour)
Ukrainian EFWBT Assessment
Our results revealed a strong trend in increased UHP confi-
dence at a rate equal to that of the third-year medical students.
Prior to the training, no participants rated themselves as ‘fairly
confident’ or ‘completely confident’ in their ability to teach
an EFWBT course or to perform an EFWBT in an austere en-
vironment. After the training, scores increased significantly;
75% of the participants felt ‘fairly confident’ or ‘completely
confident’ they could teach an EFWBT course, and 87.5%
of the participants rated themselves as ‘fairly confident’ or
‘completely confident’ in their ability to perform an EFWBT
in an austere environment. The difference between both pre-
and post-training self-assessments was evaluated and found to
be statistically significant (p<.0001) (Figure 5). Additionally,
during the pre-training self-assessment, 60% of all participants
rated themselves as at least ‘fairly confident’ in their ability to
identify and determine the appropriate treatment for adverse
FWB transfusion reactions, whereas in the post- training self-
FIGURE 3 Ukrainian healthcare professionals observe emergency assessment, 91% of all participants rated themselves at least
fresh whole blood transfusion procedures. (Photo credit: Tom Balfour)
‘fairly confident’ (Table 1).
FIGURE 5 Overall confidence of medical students and Ukrainian
trainees.

FIGURE 4 Ukrainian healthcare professionals conduct guided
emergency fresh whole blood transfusion procedures. TABLE 1 Ukrainian Healthcare Professional Emergency Fresh
(Photo credit: Tom Balfour) Whole Blood Transfusion (EFWBT) Confidence Increase
Question Pre Post
Teaching EFWBT 0% (0/8) 75% (6/8)
Performing EFWBT 0% (0/8) 87.5% (7/8)

We then compared the overall performance of the UHPs to a
larger sample of third-year medical students; 95% CIs indicate
that third-year medical students entered the training with more
confidence in practical EFWBT knowledge and administra-
tive oversight than UHPs (Figure 6). However, by the end of
the training, both groups were equally confident in practical
EFWBT knowledge and administrative oversight (p<.001). The
mean baseline score of the pre-training self-assessment for UHPs
and third-year medical students was 34.17% and 58.25%, re-
spectively, while the post-training self-assessment increase for
Ukrainian and third-year medical students was 77.50% and
77.74%, respectively. The difference between the mean scores
small sample population of UHPs, the pre- and post-training was calculated using a paired-sample t test to compare the pre-
self-assessments were compared to the pre- and post-training and post-assessment questionnaires and was found to be statis-
self-assessments of third-year medical students from the USU tically significant (two-tailed p-value <.0001).
to determine the statistical relevance of the results; the third-
year medical students completed the same whole blood trans- The pre- and post-training self-assessments for UHPs and
fusion training as the UHPs. third-year medical students were then subjected to a two-way

40 | JSOM Volume 23, Edition 1 / Spring 2024