JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The venipuncture is one of the most frequently performed procedures in healthcare. Arm phantoms are available for training, because the procedure itself can be challenging. These phantom arms do not represent a realistic setting and do not offer opportunities to train challenging scenarios.

Objective:

The objective of this randomized, single-blind study was to train healthcare workers on both a commercially available injection arm and an in-house developed 3D-printed arm, to evaluate the perceived realism and adequacy of training on both arms.

Methods:

Participants were trained on both the commercially available arm (A) and the 3D-printed arm (B). Participants were blinded from knowing which arm they started training on. A questionnaire was filled in on, amongst others, the perceived realism of the arm (0 for not realistic, 100 for realistic) and adequacy of the training (inadequate, moderate, adequate).

Results:

A total of 68 participants evaluated the perceived realism of arm A and B, which were on average 62.97 (SD 21.47) and 63.79 (SD 17.45), respectively. The difference in perceived realism of the two arms was not statistically significant (p=0.784). Training on arm A was reported inadequate by 7.4% of the participants, moderately adequate by 30.9% and adequate by 61.8%. This was not significantly different from arm B (p=0.739), with 4.4%, 38.2% and 57.4%, respectively.

Conclusions:

The 3D-printed arm is as realistic and provides an equally adequate training compared to the commercially available arm. The 3D-printed arm offers the additional possibility to design different models representing several levels of difficulty for vascular morphology. This potentially lowers the number of venipuncture failures by preparing healthcare workers on challenging scenarios.