Investigating the Attitudes of Canadian Paramedic Students towards Homelessness
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Introduction: When paramedics are dispatched, it is expected that every patient receives the same level of careregardless of variable factors. Homelessness is a growing social issue across Canada that is particularlyprevalent in urban areas. The quality of healthcare delivered to individuals experiencing homelessness may beinfluenced by negative attitudes held by healthcare professionals. There is an absence of literature quantifyingthe perspectives of paramedics towards homelessness; therefore, the focus of this study was to identify theattitudes of paramedic students towards homelessness and to continue the conversation in regards to theevolving educational needs of paramedic students.Methods: This study employed a longitudinal design of a convenience sample of first year paramedic studentsin a college program in Ontario, Canada. The ‘Health Professional’s Attitude Towards the Homeless Inventory’(HPATHI) was distributed to participants before and after placement and clinical exposure. The questionnaireincludes 19 statements which participants respond to on a Likert scale. Mean scores were calculated, andstatements were categorized into attitudes, interest, and confidence. Data were collected post-placement oninteractions with persons experiencing homelessness.Results: A total of 52 first year paramedic students completed the HPATHI pre-placement and 47 completedthe questionnaire post-placement. Mean scores for attitudes (pre 3.64, SD 0.49; post 3.85, SD 0.38, p=0.032),interest (pre 3.91, SD 0.40; post 3.84, SD 0.39,p=0.51) and confidence (pre 4.02, SD 0.50; post 3.71, SD 0.67,p=0.004) were largely positive, but there was a demonstrated decreasing trend in confidence with, and interestin, working with those experiencing homelessness. Participants reported an average of 60 hours of placement,during which 15 participants (32%) reported interactions with people experiencing homelessness.Conclusion: First year paramedic students demonstrate overall positive attitudes towards those experiencinghomelessness, and the mean score for attitudes improved over the surveys. However, there were demonstrabledecreases in confidence and interest over time, which may be related to the type and frequency of interactionsduring clinical placement. Paramedic education programs may benefit from the inclusion of focused educationon homelessness, specific clinical experiences, and education related to social determinants of health.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".