the role of demographic factors and skills of pre-hospital staff in the handling and movement of patients from trauma scenes to emergency wards

Background: handling, transferring, and handing off trauma patients impose risks on patients and transfer teams. therefore, pre-hospital staffs require a high skill to perform these processes simultaneously in critical situations.aim: the present study was performed with aim to examine the role of demographic factors and skills of pre-hospital staff in the handling and movement of trauma patients to hospitals.method: this cross-sectional study was performed by the proportional stratified random sampling method on 151 pre-hospital emergency staff. for data collection, in addition to a demographic information questionnaire, the researcher completed a valid and reliable checklist based on 300 hours of direct observation for assessing staff skills. the data were analyzed by spss software (version 20) using descriptive and inferential statistics. p<0.05 was considered statistically significant.results: the mean score of staff skills was 77.80±7.84. the lowest scores were related to the stage of “transfer to hospital” (72.04±8.41) and the dimension of “using body mechanics” (67.57±10.42). there was an inverse correlation between staff body mass index and the mean score of staff skills (r= -0.19, p<0.05). besides, the staff’s skill mean score was correlated with patients’ age (r=0.18) and weight (r=0.16) (p<0.05).implications for practice: retraining courses covering driving, managing pediatric patients, healthy diet and exercise, proper use of equipment, and body mechanics should be implemented for pre-hospital staff. also, authorities should take measures to control infection and improve patient handoff.