Clinical forensic medicine in emergency departments: a pilot study of a forensic training and evaluation of its effectiveness in an Italian hospital.
Clinical forensic medicine
Emergency departments
Forensic in hospitals
Forensic training
Violence by others
Journal
International journal of legal medicine
ISSN: 1437-1596
Titre abrégé: Int J Legal Med
Pays: Germany
ID NLM: 9101456
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
27 Aug 2024
27 Aug 2024
Historique:
received:
21
04
2024
accepted:
13
08
2024
medline:
28
8
2024
pubmed:
28
8
2024
entrez:
27
8
2024
Statut:
aheadofprint
Résumé
Because emergency departments are often the first point of contact for victims of violence, it is critical to provide the appropriate treatment in compliance with all necessary medicolegal precautions. For this reason, a randomized controlled trial was conducted at the Policlinico Hospital of Milan (Italy) in which an intervention group (12 physicians) received a 6-h course on clinical forensic medicine and their performance in medicolegal procedures in claimed cases of violence was compared with that of a control group (13 physicians) by means of a 16-item assessment scale over the 3 months before and the 3 months after the course. Overall, 195 medical records were included in the statistical analysis. Out of these cases, 105 occurred before the course (60 analyzed by the control group and 45 by the intervention group) and 90 occurred after the course (45 analyzed by the control group and 45 by the intervention group). The results showed that the overall mean score of physicians who participated to the course increased from 14.0 (IQR 7.0) to 19.0 (IQR 8.0) with a p-value < 0.0001 and that the comparison between the intervention group and the control group after the course was 19.0 (IQR = 8.0) and 14.0 (IQR = 7.0), respectively, with a p-value < 0.0001. The improvement was very little and below the expectations pointing out that educational courses, although they can be a first step towards raising the ED physicians' awareness of clinical forensics, may not be enough and that more structured training and new strategies should be implemented.
Identifiants
pubmed: 39191918
doi: 10.1007/s00414-024-03313-0
pii: 10.1007/s00414-024-03313-0
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Informations de copyright
© 2024. The Author(s).
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