The IDEA project aims at creating a common training platform for assessors of driving fitness in different European countries. The training platform will consist of educational tools such as a multimedia training package, a communication media training package, basic and specific training curricula. To ascertain whether the educational tools of the IDEA project are useful, and if their results are superior to those obtained by local standard procedures of learning to carry out fitness-to-drive assessments, a comparison will be made between the achievements of those who have undergone the IDEA training and those who have not done so. This will be done within the framework of a pilot study. If the “IDEA-model” is shown to be superior to existing training procedures, it is obviously also important to examine its value in terms of cost-benefit. Therefore, its demands on the users’ time and efforts will be related to its usefulness. Also, features such as user-friendliness and acceptability will be examined. The pilot study will take 9 months and will involve institutions in four different European countries: Belgium, Greece, Spain and Sweden. The design of the investigation is that of a case-control study, and the assessors will thus be selected in order to be as similar as possible in terms of background characteristics (age, sex, educational level, previous experience of driving assessments etc.). In each country, 3 pilot assessors and 3 control assessors, occupational therapists or physiotherapists, will participate. Their training process will be monitored by periodical questionnaires. The final outcome measures of the pilot study will be a knowledge test. The pilot plans presented in this report take into account potential sources of error due to the possibility of contamination between case and control subjects. To ensure an active participation and adherence to the design of the investigation, all participants will receive specific manuals detailing the requirements on their work. (Author/publisher)
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