While patient safety and wellbeing are the primary focus of paramedic education,
there is a growing need to address practitioner wellbeing. Paramedics have the
highest rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among emergency services
occupations, highlighting the necessity for better education and support services.
Existing psychosocial interventions are mostly reactive and not standardised in
Ireland. Proactive educational efforts are crucial to help paramedics manage jobrelated
stress before it leads to chronic mental health conditions, impacting their
ability to perform effectively in the already over-burdened health system.
In Ireland, the Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council (PHECC) is the statutory
regulator for pre-hospital emergency care, established in 2000 to protect the public
and support practitioners. PHECC sets education standards, publishes clinical
practice guidelines, and defines the scope of practice for each clinical level. Current
educational content for paramedic wellbeing focuses on knowledge acquisition, with
skills-based teaching yet to be implemented. Paramedic operational encounters often
involve critical conversations with vulnerable individuals, demanding better
preparation through a scaffolded curriculum, including simulation-based education.
To facilitate these transformational learning experiences, educators must be
competent using various educational modalities.
This research proposal aims to explore how to best improve paramedic mental
health, by embedding an evidence-based mental health and workplace wellbeing
programme into paramedic education standards; and ensuring sustainability by
upskilling paramedic educators and evaluating the outcomes.
Utilising a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach and a
structured curricular design model, data collection will include document analysis,
quantitative surveys, and qualitative interviews with paramedic faculty, course
providers, and paramedics in Ireland. By integrating the learnings from our five work
packages, we aim to present a revised faculty curriculum, emphasising practitioner
mental health, to be considered at PHECC Council (national level). We expect this evidence-based curriculum will influence national standards, which are adopted by all
paramedic education providers.
