Abstract
Background Early identification of warning symptoms among out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) patients remains challenging. Thus, we examined the registered prodromal symptoms of patients who called medical helpline services within 30-days before OHCA. Methods Patients unwitnessed by emergency medical services (EMS) aged ≥18 years during their OHCA were identified from the Danish Cardiac Arrest Registry (2014–2018) and linked to phone records from the 24-h emergency helpline (1−1−2) and out-of-hours medical helpline (1813-Medical Helpline) in Copenhagen before the arrest. The registered symptoms were categorized into chest pain; breathing problems; central nervous system (CNS)-related/unconsciousness; abdominal/back/urinary; psychiatric/addiction; infection/fever; trauma/exposure; and unspecified (diverse from the beforementioned categories). Analyses were divided by the time-period of calls (0-7 days/8-30 days preceding OHCA) and call type (1–1-2/1813-Medical Helpline). Results Of all OHCA patients, 18% (974/5442) called helpline services (males 56%, median age 76 years[Q1-Q3:65–84]). Among these, 816 had 1145 calls with registered symptoms. The most common symptom categories (except for unspecified, 33%) were breathing problems (17%), trauma/exposure (17%), CNS/unconsciousness (15%), abdominal/back/urinary (12%), and chest pain (9%). Most patients (61%) called 1813-Medical Helpline, especially for abdominal/back/urinary (17%). Patients calling 1–1-2 had breathing problems (24%) and CNS/unconsciousness (23%). Nearly half of the patients called within 7 days before their OHCA, and CNS/unconsciousness (19%) was the most registered. The unspecified category remained the most common during both time periods (32%;33%) and call type (24%;39%). Conclusions Among patients who called medical helplines services up to 30-days before their OHCA, besides symptoms being highly varied (unspecified (33%)), breathing problems (17%) were the most registered symptom-specific category.
Originalsprog | Engelsk |
---|---|
Tidsskrift | International Journal of Cardiology |
Vol/bind | 374 |
Sider (fra-til) | 42-50 |
Antal sider | 9 |
ISSN | 0167-5273 |
DOI | |
Status | Udgivet - 2023 |
Bibliografisk note
Funding Information:Dr. Torp-Pedersen reports receiving grant support from Bayer and Novo Nordisk.
Funding Information:
Dr. Gislason and Dr. Folke are supported by an unrestricted clinical research grant from The Novo Nordisk Foundation .
Funding Information:
Dr. Zylyftari has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program European Sudden Cardiac Arrest Network Towards Prevention, Education, New Effective Treatment under grant agreement no. 733381, the COST Action PARQ (grant agreement no. CA19137) supported by European Cooperation in Science and Technology, and Helsefonden.
Funding Information:
This project has received funding from Helsefonden under grant agreement Reference nr: PSP F-19230-01-54 and from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under acronym ESCAPE-NET, registered under grant agreement No 733381. The sponsors of the study had no role in the study design, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, and writing of this article.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s)