Medical student coping and performance in simulated disasters.

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Disaster Medicine
• Psychology

Background:

• Effective stress coping is crucial for emergency medicine providers during real and simulated disasters.
• Limited understanding exists regarding specific coping strategies used and their impact on performance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between coping strategies and clinical and interpersonal performance in medical students during a simulated disaster.
• To identify if coping mechanisms predict performance beyond demographic and psychological factors.

Main Methods:

• Thirty-four medical students participated in 111 simulated disaster clinical encounters.
• Evaluations were conducted by trained simulated patients and physician observers.
• Multilevel modeling (Linear Mixed Effects) analyzed performance data, controlling for covariates.

Main Results:

• Positive thinking was a significant positive predictor of observed clinical performance.
• Avoidant coping strategies negatively predicted clinical performance.
• Anticipatory anxiety and positive affect predicted interpersonal performance, but reported coping did not.

Conclusions:

• Medical students' self-reported coping strategies during disaster scenarios are linked to observed clinical performance.
• Findings support the identification of specific coping strategies as potential training targets for disaster response.
• The study demonstrates the feasibility of empirically assessing coping strategies in simulated disaster settings.