Comparison of electronic learning versus lecture-based learning in improving emergency medicine residents’ knowledge about mild induced hypothermia after cardiac arrest

Abstract

Background: The process of medical education depends on several issues such as training materials, students, professors, educational fields, and the applied technologies. The current study aimed at comparing the impacts of e-learning and lecture-based learning of mild induced hypothermia (MIH) after cardiac arrest on the increase of knowledge among emergency medicine residents. Methods: In a pre- and post-intervention study, MIH after cardiac arrest was taught to 44 emergency medicine residents. Residents were randomly divided into 2 groups. The first group included 21 participants (lecture-based learning) and the second had 23 participants (e-learning). A 19-item questionnaire with approved validity and reliability was employed as the pretest and posttest. Then, data were analyzed with SPSS software version 17.0. Results: There was no statistically significant difference in terms of the learning method between the test scores of the 2 groups (P = 0.977). Conclusions: E-learning and lecture-based learning methods was effective in augmentation of residents of emergency medicine knowledge about MIH after cardiac arrest; nevertheless, there was no significant difference between these mentioned methods.