A teaching tool in spinal anesthesia.

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to develop and evaluate a new model for teaching spinal anesthesia to nurse anesthesia students. The new teaching tool was evaluated to determine if the use of a spinal model allowing visual combined with the haptic sense was more effective than the traditional spinal model using primarily the haptic sense. Specifically, was there a difference in the number of successful passes, the amount of time taken for each spinal attempt, and the number of participants who reached 90% proficiency when comparing the use of both spinal models? Data analysis using a paired t test and Wilcoxon signed rank test revealed that the number of successes, amount of time needed to complete 1 needle pass, and point at which 90% proficiency was reached with the newly designed model were significantly greater than with the traditional model. The present study demonstrated that significant differences exist between participants who used both visual and haptic sense and participants who used primarily the haptic sense when performing spinal anesthesia. Findings of this study will be used to provide information that may be used to change the current curriculum for the training of nurse anesthesia students in spinal anesthetic procedures.