2007 Volume 67 Issue 5 Pages 422-434
To assess the effectiveness of exercises using the case method for acquisition of subjective health crisis management competencies. 1. Program development and performance : A case method program“outbreak of avian influenza in the Kohoku region of Shiga Prefecture”was developed and conducted for 40 council partici-pants of health crisis management agency representations in the community. Awareness of possession of health crisis management competencies (C1 - C15; author's previous report) was investigated among the participants, and replies to the questionnaire were obtained before and after the program. 2. Analysis of the replies to the sur-vey: The Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to analyze the valid data sets (n=23: reply rate 57.5%) . Significant differences were found for competency C2“Competency needed to estimate the magnitude of the impact of an out-break on the Kohoku community” (P=0.039), C4“Competency to gather information required to estimate the magnitude of the impact of an outbreak on the Kohoku community” (P=0.031), and C10“Competency to be able to judge who should bear responsibility for each level of judgment according to the type and severity of the health crisis” (P=0.016) . Significant differences in C2 were observed at 50 years of age and over (P=0.031; n=11), and in C2 (P=0.031) and C4 (P=0.031) for those with 20 years or more of public service (n=15) . It is expected that case method exercises can help improve judgment competencies in managers' (C2, C4, and C10) early initial responses. In addition, the results suggest that case method exercises are effective for improving competency in estimating the impact of health crises, especially among highly experienced managers.
