Non-technical Skills in Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation: Improvement and Evaluation of a New Course Introduced to the Curriculum at a Medical School in Poland in 2018 to 2019

Non-technical skills (NTS) are important skills in emergency medicine and should be a necessity even at the stage of medical studies. The aim of this study was to assess how increasing the number of non-technical skills hours influenced the results of non-technical competences among medical students. In this investigation, 296 Polish medical students in the sixth year at Medical College in Krakow, Poland were included in the study. The students were divided into two research groups: I in 2018 and II in 2019. The groups differed in the number of total hours that focused on non-technical skills, in 2018: 60 hr, and 2019: 120 total hours. Non-technical competencies were assessed at the Crisis Resource Management station using sudden cardiac arrest scenarios. In 2018, the median was 20 points and the average of the points obtained in this group was 19.53 points (SD 5.39 points). In 2019, the median was 26 points and the average of points was 25.07 points (SD 5.23 points). Students who had more non-technical skills classes (120 hr) scored more points on the OSCE exam than group I (60 hr) (p < .001). The median of points in non-technical competences depended on the number of teaching hours in which the main emphasis was on the development of these skills. This investigation demonstrates that more teaching hours dedicated to improving the non-technical skills of students corresponded to better results on the cardiopulmonary resuscitation scenarios.