Escape rooms in paramedic education

Introduction Even with paramedicine’s evolution, clinical decision-making will always be a crucial learning and teaching requirement. As part of their learning, paramedic students need to develop critical thinking and collaborative approaches with others. The aim was to review the literature around escape room activity as a pedagogical approach for paramedic education. The intent is to contribute to the discussion around authentic and engaging approaches to teaching clinical thinking and decision making in paramedicine. Methods A systematic review was undertaken to review existing literature on using this approach in higher education. EBSCO, Medline, CINAHL, ScienceDirect, ProQuest and PubMed were used to review paramedic and health education strategies using the keywords ‘paramedic and education’, ‘ambulance and education’, ‘paramedic and training’ and ‘health education and higher education curriculum’. Specific education databases were used for a more targeted search with specific keywords used (‘Escape Room’ OR ‘Escape Game’ OR ‘Puzzle Room’ AND ‘Higher Education’). The education databases Education Research Complete, Emerald, Elsevier, ERIC and Teacher Reference Center were used, with Google Scholar also being used for its vast breadth of coverage. Results There were 23 scholarly papers examining the use of escape rooms in an educational context found. There was no reference to using this teaching methodology in paramedicine, but some health contexts were identified for nursing, pharmacy, radiology and medicine. Conclusion With an instructional design that addresses logistical requirements, educational escape rooms can be used effectively in paramedic higher education. This review highlights a longitudinal study is needed to assess an educational escape room’s implementation into the paramedic higher education curriculum. A longitudinal, multi-university study can further explore the feasibility of using a blended online/offline escape room activity in large enrolment paramedic programs.