Competency in electrocardiogram interpretation among sixth year undergraduate medical students at Public University, Western Kenya: Pre-test-post-test Quasi experimental study design

Abstract

Background: The electrocardiogram (ECG) examination, one of the most frequently administered diagnostic tests, graduating medical  students are required to possess core competency in accurately interpreting abnormalities to prevent adverse patient outcomes. 

Methods: The study aimed to assess ECG interpretation competency in sixthyear medical students at a Public University in Western  Kenya using a one-arm pre-test-post-test quasi-experimental study design. The 20 questions focused on the ability of the medical  students to identify abnormal and normal ECG patterns Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 25 was utilised for  analyzing the results, employing paired t-tests and descriptive statistics in the data analysis.

Results: In this study, 61 sixth year  undergraduate medical students at Public University participated. Mean performance at Pre-test was 58.11% and after the teaching was  74%. The paired samples had a positive correlation of 0.219 implying that students who scored very low in Pre-test tend to improve by scoring higher marks after the training in their Post-test evaluation. This current study, the mean difference was -15.902, with a 95%  confidence interval of the mean difference -19.342 to -12.461 with a t value of -9.246 and the degree of freedom was 60 and the P value <  0.0001.

Conclusion: The study found significant improvement in ECG interpretation among sixth-year medical students in Western Kenya.  Future studies should consider a two-arm pre-test-post-test design for robust teaching effectiveness evaluation. This study  establishes the need to have ECG interpretation standards for medical schools, ensuring graduates are clinically competent.