• J Neurosci Nurs · Aug 2003

    Influence of delaying treatment after symptoms develop from subarachnoid hemorrhage: a preliminary analysis.

    • Lynn Lorenzi, Mary E Kerr, Howard Yonas, Sheila Alexander, and Elizabeth Crago.
    • Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. lorenzila@hotmail.com
    • J Neurosci Nurs. 2003 Aug 1;35(4):210-4.

    AbstractPatients experiencing subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) symptoms may delay seeking medical attention, not realizing the severity of these symptoms. The purposes of this study were to determine (a) the length of time between the development of SAH symptoms in patients and when treatment was initially sought and (b) whether the delay in hospital admission had an effect on patient outcomes. Inclusion criteria were age (18-75 years) and diagnosis of severe SAH. Consent was obtained on 90 eligible patients admitted to the neurovascular intensive care unit. Outcomes were assessed at 3 months using the Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS) and Modified Rankin Scale (MRS). Initial time delay, calculated by subtracting the time of initial symptom development from the time of admission to the emergency department (ED), ranged from 0.08 to 103 hours. There was no relationship between the initial time delay and GOS or MRS scores. There was a significant difference between the time to initial ED admission to a trauma ED and to a community ED; patients were admitted within 2.7 hours to a trauma ED admission, compared to 7 hours for a community ED admission. There was a significant relationship between the Hunt and Hess Scale and GOS and between the Hunt and Hess and MRS. There was a significant relationship between the Fisher Grade and GOS and between the Fisher Grade and MRS. This study shows that patients may delay treatment for nearly 7 hours after initial symptoms develop. This suggests that laypersons are not aware of SAH symptoms, thereby delaying ED admission and care. The study also suggests that more severe symptoms upon admission to the ED were related to poorer outcomes. Initial clinical presentation is a useful predictor for SAH outcomes. This study supports the idea that the general public needs to be educated on the symptoms of SAH.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…