Effect of prehospital patient consciousness level on prehospital stroke screening by emergency medical service provider of stroke patient

ABSTRACT

Objective@#Stroke detection at the prehospital stage is critically important for the provision of rapid treatment to stroke patients. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of patient consciousness level on prehospital stroke screening (PSS) by the emergency medical service (EMS) provider. @*Methods@#This retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted using data collected from a linked database of NEDIS (National Emergency Department Information System) and the EMS database in three hospitals. Adult stroke patients who were admitted into the emergency department (ED) using 119 EMS ambulances from 2014 to 2018 were included. The prehospital level of consciousness of patients was evaluated by the EMS provider, and they were divided into two treatment groups: an alert group and a non-alert group (verbal, painful, and unresponsive). The study outcomes were positive results of PSS: the Los Angeles Prehospital Stroke Scale (LAPSS) and Cincinnati Prehospital Stroke Scale (CPSS). Logistic regression analysis was conducted to evaluate the effect of prehospital consciousness level on the PSS result. @*Results@#A total number of 3,422 stroke patients were included. The positive rate of LAPSS was 17.0% in the alert group and 8.8% in the non-alert group. The positive rate of CPSS was 35.7% in the alert group and 21.3% in the non-alert group. In the adjusted logistic regression model, in the non-alert group, the adjusted odds ratio (AOR) for LAPSS was 0.47 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.38-0.59) and the AOR for positive CPSS was 0.49 (95% CI, 0.42-0.57). @*Conclusion@#Low consciousness level patients had lower detection of stroke by the EMS provider. EMS provider employees need additional training to achieve more effective detection of stroke in low consciousness level patients.