Effectiveness of Three Teaching Approaches in the Development of Psychomotor Skills in Airway Clearance

Psychomotor skills are the practical skills used by the therapist aiming at maximising the individual's movement potential. Cardiorespiratory physical therapy is one of the many domains requiring psychomotor skills. Now-a-days, many students lack divergent thinking and psychomotor skills. This cannot be only attributed to the lack of performance of skill-related task by the students but also in the way they have been trained. The performances of the students are not satisfactory when it comes to hands on skill. Airway clearance techniques and suctioning are the most important physiotherapy psychomotor skills been used in the critical care units and if not done properly can lead to complications. To reduce/prevent these types of complications, teaching and training these psychomotor skills would be beneficial.

To determine the most effective method of teaching the skill of endotracheal suctioning.

To assess the subjective perception of the acquired endotracheal suctioning skill through the various teaching methods.

Seventeen students of 3rd year physiotherapy were randomly allocated into three groups. The groups being didactic classroom teaching, video teaching and hands on skill on mannequin, respectively. After 1 week, objective structured clinical examination was conducted with a marking grid scoring system. The subjective feedback was also taken from the students.

The students who underwent hands on skill training scored the maximum as compared to the other two groups.

Hands on skill were the best method of teaching the psychomotor skill of endotracheal suction.