where articles reporting factor analysis increased by 16,000% (2 articles in 1985 to 326
articles in 2000).1 Applying a similar electronic database search involving paramedic articles
only yielded one article utilising factor analysis.2 While this finding perhaps is not surprising,
the paramedic body of knowledge and application of multivariate statistics is likely to
increase with the passage of time, particularly as many paramedics opt to pursue postgraduate
studies.