Abstract
BackgroundAccording to the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR), the trigger words used by callers that are associated with cardiac arrest constitute a scientific knowledge gap. This study was designed to find hypothetical trigger words in emergency calls in order to improve the specificity of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest recognition.MethodsIn this descriptive pilot study conducted in a Finnish hospital district, linguistic contents of 80 emergency calls of dispatcher-suspected or EMS-encountered out-of-hospital cardiac arrests between January 1, 2017 and May 31, 2017 were analysed. Spontaneous trigger words used by callers were transcribed and grouped into 36 categories. The association between the spontaneous trigger words and confirmed true cardiac arrests was tested with logistic regression.ResultsOf the suspected cardiac arrests, 51 (64%) were confirmed as true cardiac arrests when ambulance personnel met the patient. A total of 291 spontaneous trigger words were analysed. ‘Is not breathing’ (n = 9 [18%] in the true cardiac arrest group vs n = 1 [3%] in the non-cardiac arrest group, odds ratio [OR] 6.00, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.72–50.0), ‘the patient is blue’ (n = 9 [18%] vs n = 1 [3%], OR 6.00, 95% CI 0.72–50.0), ‘collapsed or fallen down’ (n = 12 [24%] vs n = 2 [7%], OR 4.15, 95% CI 0.86–20.1) and ‘is wheezing’ (n = 17 [33%] vs n = 5 [17%], OR 2.40, 95% CI 0.78–7.40) were frequently used to describe true cardiac arrest. ‘Is snoring’ was associated with a false suspicion of cardiac arrest (n = 1 [2%] vs n = 6 [21%], OR 0.08, 95% CI 0.009–0.67).ConclusionsIn our pilot study, no trigger word was associated with confirmed cardiac arrest. ‘Is wheezing’ was a frequently used spontaneous trigger word among later confirmed cardiac arrest victims.
Highlights
According to the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR), the trigger words used by callers that are associated with cardiac arrest constitute a scientific knowledge gap
Between January 1, 2017 and May 31, 2017, all audio recordings and electronic mission reports of consecutive emergency calls of dispatcher-suspected of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) or EMSencountered OHCA that a dispatcher had not suspected in the study area were extracted from the EinsatzLeitSystem (ELS) database maintained by the Emergency Response Centre Agency [12]
A univariate logistic regression was used to assess the association between the spontaneous trigger words and confirmed cardiac arrests, and the results were presented as odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI)
Summary
According to the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR), the trigger words used by callers that are associated with cardiac arrest constitute a scientific knowledge gap. This study was designed to find hypothetical trigger words in emergency calls in order to improve the specificity of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest recognition. The well-known clinical signs of cardiac arrest are unresponsiveness and absent or abnormal breathing [6]. It is unclear how these signs and symptoms, especially agonal breaths, are interpreted and described by laypeople. Besides cardiac arrest, these clinical signs and symptoms are related to many other medical conditions, which results in significant amount of false positive suspicions of OHCA.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
