Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Observational Study
Evaluation of a Screening Tool for Child Sex Trafficking Among Patients With High-Risk Chief Complaints in a Pediatric Emergency Department.
The objective was to apply and evaluate a screening tool to identify victims of child sex trafficking (CST) in a pediatric emergency department (PED) population. ⋯ Applied to an inner-city PED population of 203 participants with high-risk chief complaints, the screening tool has high sensitivity and high NPV. This makes it appropriate for an initial screening to rule out CST in this high-risk population. Applicability for broader use and additional practice settings are warranted given the significant positivity rate among those presenting with high-risk concerns.
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Multicenter Study
Emergency Department Adult Fiberoptic Intubations: Incidence, Indications, and Implications for Training.
The objective was to describe the frequency, indications, and outcomes of flexible fiberoptic intubations (FFI) performed in the emergency department (ED). ⋯ Emergency department FFI is uncommon and typically used as a nonsurgical alternative for airway obstruction. First-attempt ED FFI is successful in half of cases and in two-thirds of rescue attempts. These data provide an important baseline to help better characterize the nature of FFI as a rare critical procedure in the ED and offer an empiric basis for ongoing discussions on the optimal role of FFI in ED training and practice.
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Observational Study
Validation of the Brief Confusion Assessment Method for screening delirium in elderly medical patients in a German emergency department.
Delirium is frequent in elderly patients presenting in the emergency department (ED). Despite the severe prognosis, the majority of delirium cases remain undetected by emergency physicians (EPs). At the time of our study there was no valid delirium screening tool available for EDs in German-speaking regions. We aimed to evaluate the brief Confusion Assessment Method (bCAM) for a German ED during the daily work routine. ⋯ This was the first study evaluating the bCAM for a German ED and when performed by EPs during routine work. The bCAM showed good specificity, but only moderate sensitivity. Nevertheless, application of the bCAM most likely improves the delirium detection rate in German EDs. However, it should only be applied by trained physicians to maximize diagnostic accuracy and hence improve the bCAM's sensitivity. Future studies should refine the bCAM.
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The Global Emergency Medicine Literature Review (GEMLR) conducts an annual search of peer-reviewed and gray literature relevant to global emergency medicine (EM) to identify, review, and disseminate the most important new research in this field to a global audience of academics and clinical practitioners. ⋯ In 2017, the total number of articles identified by our search continued to increase. Studies and reviews with a focus on infectious diseases, pediatrics, and trauma represented the majority of top-scoring articles.