Peer Evaluation of Paramedic Professional behaviors in State of Kuwait

Master’s Thesis from the year 2009 in the subject Medicine - Public Health, grade: Master Degree, course: Health Professions Education, language: English, abstract: Professionalism is the backbone of effective delivery of emergency medical services (EMS) practice, and is a component of the national standard curricula for advanced level of EMS education. The professional behavior of paramedics in Kuwait has never been evaluated. In this study peer evaluation has been used to assess these affective competencies of paramedics in Kuwait. Focus group discussions were carried out at each of the six ambulance centers to get an insight into professionalism issues of paramedics. A professional behavior evaluation instrument developed by Brown et al (2005) was used to rate peers by paramedics of six Ambulance Districts in Kuwait. Paramedics with at least a diploma and one year field experience were asked to rate their paramedic partner with whom they have worked together in the past year on 11 categories of professional behavior using Likert scale. Variables such as nationality, educational qualifications, years of experience, marital status and ambulance centers were analysed.