Effectiveness of finger-marker for maintaining the correct compression point during paediatric resuscitation: A simulation study.

OBJECTIVE: High-quality cardiopulmonary resuscitation is a significant factor for increasing the survival rate of paediatric patients. This study is to investigate the effectiveness of finger-marker stickers for maintaining the correct compression point during simulated infant cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). METHODS: This crossover simulation study was conducted with 40 emergency physicians and paramedics at emergency departments of 2 tertiary hospitals. We used a remodeled infant CPR manikin developed to measure CPR quality indicators. After random coupling of participants (20 pairs), the pre-group (10 pairs) performed conventional 2-rescuer infant manikin CPR, then performed sticker-applied CPR after 1month. The post-group (10 pairs) performed the process in the opposite order. The participants placed finger-marker stickers to indicate the appropriate compression point before starting CPR. We compared accurate finger placement rates and other CPR quality indicators (compression depth, rate, complete chest recoil, and hands-off time) with and without the finger-marker sticker. RESULTS: All finger-marker stickers were correctly attached within 5s (4.88±1.28s) of approaching the model. There were significant differences in the rate of correct finger compression position between conventional and sticker-applied CPR (25.4% [IQRs 7.6-69.8] vs. 88.2% [IQRs 69.6-95.5], P<0.001). Results did not differ according to sex, career, and job of the participants. There were no significant differences in mean compression rate, depth, hands-off times, and rate of fully recoiled compression between the 2 groups. CONCLUSION: Finger-marker stickers can be used to maintain correct finger positioning during 2-rescuer infant manikin CPR.

The Impact of Wireless Emergency Alerts on a Floating Population in Seoul, South Korea: Panel Data Analysis.

BACKGROUND: Wireless emergency alerts (WEAs), which deliver disaster information directly to individuals' mobile phones, have been widely used to provide information related to COVID-19 and to encourage compliance with social distancing guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic. The floating population refers to the number of people temporarily staying in a specific area, and this demographic data can be a useful indicator to understand the level of social distancing people are complying with during the COVID-19 pandemic. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to empirically analyze the impact of WEAs on the floating population where WEAs were transmitted in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. As most WEA messages focus on compliance with the government's social distancing guidelines, one of the goals of transmitting WEAs during the COVID-19 pandemic is to control the floating population at an appropriate level. METHODS: We investigated the empirical impact of WEAs on the floating population across 25 districts in Seoul by estimating a panel regression model at the district-hour level with a series of fixed effects. The main independent variables were the number of instant WEAs, the daily cumulative number of WEAs, the total cumulative number of WEAs, and information extracted from WEAs by natural language processing at the district-hour level. The data set provided a highly informative empirical setting as WEAs were sent by different local governments with various identifiable district-hour-level data. RESULTS: The estimates of the impact of WEAs on the floating population were significantly negative (-0.013, P=.02 to -0.014, P=.01) across all specifications, implying that an additional WEA issuance reduced the floating population by 1.3% (=100(1-e-0.013)) to 1.4% (=100(1-e-0.014)). Although the coefficients of DCN (the daily cumulative number of WEAs) were also negative (-0.0034, P=.34 to -0.0052, P=.15) across all models, they were not significant. The impact of WEAs on the floating population doubled (-0.025, P=.02 to -0.033, P=.005) when the first 82 days of observations were used as subsamples to reduce the possibility of people blocking WEAs. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that issuing WEAs and distributing information related to COVID-19 to a specific district was associated with a decrease in the floating population of that district. Furthermore, among the various types of information in the WEAs, location information was the only significant type of information that was related to a decrease in the floating population. This study makes important contributions. First, this study measured the impact of WEAs in a highly informative empirical setting. Second, this study adds to the existing literature on the mechanisms by which WEAs can affect public response. Lastly, this study has important implications for making optimal WEAs and suggests that location information should be included.