RESUMO
OBJECTIVES: This research focuses on assessing non-technical skills (NTS), comprising behavioral aspects that support an individual's expertise in personal and professional performance. Due to varied terminology, including "soft skills" and other terms, NTS is less understood, leading to a potential gap in the literature and limited attention to their development. This study establishes the need for a comprehensive evaluation of NTS to obtain an objective and complete profile of NTS in students pursuing medicine at the Universidad Central del Ecuador (UCE) during 2023, using a standardized and benchmarked psychometric instrument. METHODS: A cross-sectional study assessed 1035 students from the first to the 12th semester using the CompeTEA® Test, which evaluates 5 factors encompassing 20 competencies and includes sincerity as a reliability condition. Scores were corrected, analyzed, and standardized using TEAcorrige. RESULTS: The study group comprised 1035 undergraduate medical students (36.8% of students at UCE in 2023), with a mean age of 22.1 years (2.7 standard deviation), and 687 (66.4%) were female. We obtained an average score of 77.7 in sincerity. Factors such as intrapersonal, interpersonal, task development, and managerial skills showed variations throughout the course, with some competencies developing positively in intermediate clinical stages. At the same time, most exhibited a decrease toward the end of the program. Comparisons with population levels revealed 19 competencies at Level 2 and 1 competency predominantly at Level 1. CONCLUSION: The moderate to low development, with no significant differences based on demographic variables, suggests the need for specific interventions in NTS within comprehensive medical education.
RESUMO
In December 2019, a novel illness called coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was described in China and became pandemic in a few months. The first case was detected in Argentina on March 3, 2020. A multicentre prospective observational cohort study on hospitalized patients with COVID- 19 was conducted in 4 hospitals in San Isidro district from March 1, 2020 to October 31. Data was obtained by the attendant physician. 668 patients were included, the median age was 54 years, and 42.7% were female. Male sex and older age were associated with COVID-19 disease and more strongly with severity. Most frequent symptoms were fever and cough followed by dyspnoea, myalgia, odynophagia, headache, anosmia, and diarrhoea. Non-severe patients had more upper respiratory symptoms while severe patients had mainly lower respiratory symptoms on admission. Most common comorbidities were arterial hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. A great proportion of patients had normal thorax X-ray and ground-glass opacity in tomography. In severe patients, radiography and tomography had a predominant ground - glass pattern, but normal radiography and tomography on presentation were present in 22% and 5.9%, respectively. The absence of fever and normal radiology on admission neither excluded the disease nor further severity. PCR elevation was related with COVID-19 disease and with severity, while lymphopenia was more related with the disease and leukocytosis and thrombocytopenia with severity. 8, 4% of patients were health care workers. The mortality rate was 12.4%, 32.7% in severe patients and 61.2% in ventilated patients. Mortality was higher in the public hospital, probably associated with patients with older age and more comorbidities. All these observations can contribute to the knowledge of this disease in terms of diagnosis and prognosis.