The association between prehospital care and in-hospital treatment decisions in acute stroke: a cohort study
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Author
Sheppard, James P.Mellor, Ruth M.
Greenfield, Sheila
Mant, Jonathan
Quinn, Tom
Sandler, David
Sims, Don
Singh, Satinder
Ward, Matthew
McManus, Richard J.
CLAHRC BBC investigators
Journal title
Emergency Medicine Journal
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Background Hospital prealerting in acute stroke improves the timeliness of subsequent treatment, but little is known about the impact of prehospital assessments on in-hospital care. Objective Examine the association between prehospital assessments and notification by emergency medical service staff on the subsequent acute stroke care pathway. Methods This was a cohort study of linked patient medical records. Consenting patients with a diagnosis of stroke were recruited from two urban hospitals. Data from patient medical records were extracted and entered into a Cox regression analysis to investigate the association between time to CT request and recording of onset time, stroke recognition (using the Face Arm Speech Test (FAST)) and sending of a prealert message. Results 151 patients (aged 71±15 years) travelled to hospital via ambulance and were eligible for this analysis. Time of symptom onset was recorded in 61 (40%) cases, the FAST test was positive in 114 (75%) and a prealert message was sent in 65 (44%). Following adjustment for confounding, patients who had time of onset recorded (HR 0.73, 95% CI 0.52 to 1.03), were FAST-positive (HR 0.54, 95% CI 0.37 to 0.80) or were prealerted (HR 0.26, 95% CI 0.18 to 0.38), were more likely to receive a timely CT request in hospital. Conclusions This study highlights the importance of hospital prealerting, accurate stroke recognition, and recording of onset time. Those not recognised with stroke in a prehospital setting appear to be excluded from the possibility of rapid treatment in hospital, even before they have been seen by a specialist. https://emj.bmj.com/content/32/2/93.long This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/emermed-2013-203026ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1136/emermed-2013-203026
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