Measuring the outcomes of emergency care short courses offered to healthcare professionals in emergency care settings: a scoping review

Introduction This review examines how the outcomes of educational interventions used to improve emergency care are measured and reported. With an increasing demand for improved emergency care at all levels, many such interventions have taken the form of short courses that are not registerable as a formal professional qualification, yet the reporting and evaluation of their outcomes remains varied and unstandardised. The aim of this scoping review was to map and synthesize global literature on the evaluation and outcomes of emergency care short courses for healthcare professionals. Methods Published and unpublished literature (1996–2025) was searched in Sabinet, Scopus, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, MEDLINE (PubMed), and CINAHL. Search terms included emergency care short courses, outcomes, impact, evaluation, and healthcare professionals between November 2024 and June 2025. Grey literature searches included ProQuest dissertations, EMBASE conference abstracts, and hand-searching. Studies were screened, data extracted, and results summarized in tables and figures. Results Seventy-five multi-author studies published between 1996 and 2025 were included, predominantly using pre–post or quasi-experimental designs in clinical settings. Courses were typically delivered face-to-face over 1–5 days to a range of healthcare professionals, most commonly nurses and midwives, and spanned seven content domains, with general emergency care being the most frequent. Evaluations were conducted primarily immediately before (n = 50) and after (n = 54) training. Most studies assessed learning outcomes (n = 52) and learner reaction (n = 31), whereas fewer evaluated behaviour change (n = 22) or results-level outcomes (n = 7), with only a small number reporting outcomes across all four Kirkpatrick levels. Conclusion Despite a growing evidence base, evaluation of emergency care training remains largely confined to lower Kirkpatrick levels, leaving a critical gap in understanding how training translates into sustained clinical practice change and meaningful health system impact.