Varying levels of difficulty index of skills-test items randomly selected by examinees on the Korean emergency medical technician licensing examination.

PURPOSE: The goal of this study was to characterize the difficulty index of the items in the skills test components of the class I and II Korean emergency medical technician licensing examination (KEMTLE), which requires examinees to select items randomly. METHODS: The results of 1,309 class I KEMTLE examinations and 1,801 class II KEMTLE examinations in 2013 were subjected to analysis. Items from the basic and advanced skills test sections of the KEMTLE were compared to determine whether some were significantly more difficult than others. RESULTS: In the class I KEMTLE, all 4 of the items on the basic skills test showed significant variation in difficulty index (P<0.01), as well as 4 of the 5 items on the advanced skills test (P<0.05). In the class II KEMTLE, 4 of the 5 items on the basic skills test showed significantly different difficulty index (P<0.01), as well as all 3 of the advanced skills test items (P<0.01). CONCLUSION: In the skills test components of the class I and II KEMTLE, the procedure in which examinees randomly select questions should be revised to require examinees to respond to a set of fixed items in order to improve the reliability of the national licensing examination.

Pre- and in-hospital delay in treatment and in-hospital mortality after acute myocardial infarction.

PURPOSE: 1) To identify the time taken from symptom onset to the arrival at the hospital (pre-hospital delay time) and time taken from the arrival at the hospital to the initiation of the major treatment (in-hospital delay time) 2) to examine whether rapid treatment results in lower mortality. 3) to examine whether the pre- and in-hospital delay time can independently predict in-hospital mortality. METHODS: A retrospective study with 586 consecutive AMI patients was conducted. RESULTS: Pre-hospital delay time was 5.25 (SD=10.36), and in-hospital delay time was 1.10 (SD=1.00) hours for the thrombolytic therapy and 50.24 (SD=121.18) hours for the percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty(PTCA). In-hospital mortality was the highest when the patients were treated between 4 to 48 hours after symptom onset using PTCA (p=.02), and when treated between 30 minutes and one hour after hospital arrival using thrombolytics (p=.01). Using a hierarchical logistic regression model, the pre- and in-hospital delay times did not predict the in-hospital mortality. CONCLUSION: Pre- and in-hospital delay times need to be decreased to meet the desirable therapeutic time window. Thrombolytics should be given within 30 minutes after arrival at the hospital, and PTCA should be initiated within 4 hours after symptom onset to minimize in-hospital mortality of AMI patients.