High consequence infectious diseases training using interprofessional simulation and TeamSTEPPS

Abstract

Background: The comfort level of health care workers to respond to an infectious disease outbreak or epidemic is likely directly related to the amount of education, training, and experience they have in responding to these events.

Methods: A quasi-experimental study evaluated health care workers' state anxiety, self-efficacy, and interprofessional teamwork when working with patients simulated to have a potentially high consequence infectious disease.

Results: Pretest-posttest 1 scores revealed a significant decrease in state anxiety (P < .0001) and an increase in self-efficacy (P < .0001). Overall state anxiety preintervention (pretest) to postintervention (posttest 3) significantly decreased (P = .0265). Overall TeamSTEPPS knowledge significantly increased (P < .0001) from baseline.

Conclusions: Simulation exercises are an effective strategy to increase self-efficacy and decrease state anxiety for health care workers. Positive teamwork scores indicate that the subjects value interprofessional teamwork.

Keywords: High consequence infectious diseases; Interprofessional education; Interprofessional teamwork; Self-efficacy; State anxiety.