THE COMPETENCE OF MEDICAL STAFF MEMBERS AND DOCTORS TO TAKE PATIENTS' MEDICAL HISTORY IN EMERGENCY OF TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL

Objective: The vital point to detect patients’ need in pre-hospital emergency is to have high ability to take medical history. This ability is low according to all research findings. Our aim of this research is to investigate the ability to take medical history of patients in the Emergency department of Allied Hospital Faisalabad. Methods: This research was a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted from May 2019 to April 2020. The population included staff and doctors (N=171). The samples were selected using multi-stage cluster sampling. Data were collected by a researcher-developed questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed by SPSS software version 16 conducting descriptive and inferential statistics. All tests were administered at a significance level of P less than 0.05. Results: One hundred sixty-five (96.5%) participants were male. The mean score of the ability to take medical history was 58.4±11.1. Therefore, 95 participants (58.3 %) had poor ability and 64 participants (39.3 %) owned moderate ability. The highest score concerning the ability to take medical history was for the aspect of professional knowledge (mean rank=5). The most influential aspect in the ability was respectively for ‘professional knowledge’ (P=0.0001, Beta=0.509). Pearson correlation coefficient indicated a relationship (r=-0.149, P=0.05) between the ability to take medical history and age. Conclusion: The results of the current study indicated that the ability to take medical history among the staff and doctors was low. Therefore, a thorough review of trainings promoting personnel’s professional knowledge is urgently required. Keywords: Medical history, Emergency, Patien