Emergency medicine journal : EMJ
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There is currently concern in the UK that injuries and deaths caused by firearms are increasing. This is supported by small local studies but not by wider research to inform targeted prevention programmes. ⋯ Deaths and serious injuries caused by firearms remain rare in the civilian population of England and Wales, although an upward trend can be described. Victims of assault and homicide are predominantly young men living in urban areas and the population involved is getting younger. However, of all deaths, self-inflicted wounds are nearly twice as common as assaults, affecting predominantly older men living in more rural areas.
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To determine the capability of nurses to identify ventricular fibrillation (VF) and ventricular tachycardia (VT) rhythms on an ECG and carry out subsequent defibrillation on their own as soon as they identify and confirm cardiac arrest. ⋯ Nurses improve in defibrillation decision-making skills and confidence after appropriate brief, focused in-house training.
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To examine weather effects on the daily demand for ambulance services in Hong Kong. ⋯ The presence of strong weather effects among different target groups indicates possibility for the development of a short-term forecast system of daily ambulance demand using weather variables. The availability of such a forecast system would render more effective deployment of the ambulance services to meet the unexpected increase in service demands.