European journal of emergency medicine : official journal of the European Society for Emergency Medicine
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Cardiac arrest is associated with a poor outcome if cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is delayed. Nevertheless, CPR performance by laypersons in witnessed cardiac arrest is frequently poor. The present study evaluated the effect of a media campaign on CPR performance. ⋯ A simple and cost-efficient media campaign appears to enhance the performance of chest compressions. Ventilation performance and the rate of CPR performance were not increased by the campaign.
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Early diagnosis of traumatic brain injury and reliable prediction of outcome are essential for determining treatment strategies and allocating resources. This study re-evaluates the Eppendorf-Cologne Scale (ECS) and its predictive accuracy for outcome compared with the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS). ⋯ The ECS shows a higher accuracy for prediction of outcome compared with the GCS and enables further differentiation within the critical GCS 3 collective.
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High-level emergency medical care requires transfer of evidence-based knowledge into practice. Our study is the first to investigate the feasibility of checklists in improving prehospital emergency care. ⋯ Introduction of checklists for prehospital emergency care may help to improve adherence to treatment guidelines. Additional efforts (e.g. team trainings) have to be made to increase quality of care.
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Novel psychoactive substance (NPS) as a form of recreational drug use has become increasingly popular. There is a paucity of information with regard to the prevalence and clinical sequelae of these drugs. The aim of this study was to detect NPS in patients presenting to the emergency department with suspected toxicological ingestion. ⋯ Almost half of the presented patients revealed ingestion of multiple substances, which correlated poorly with self-reporting of patients. Developing enhanced strategies to monitor evolving drug trends is crucial to the ability of clinicians to deliver care to this challenging group of patients.
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In the present study, we aimed to determine the effects of a system-wide approach from the community to the hospital in improving the neurologic outcomes in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) patients within Sungbuk in Korea. ⋯ The system-wide CPR program was associated with enhancements in CPR performance at both the prehospital and the hospital level, and yielded improved neurologic outcomes in OHCA patients in a small region.