Disparities in Reperfusion Therapy and Time Delays Among Patients With Ischemic Stroke and a History of Mental Illness.

BACKGROUND: Comorbid mental illness may delay recognition of stroke symptoms and reduce the chance of reperfusion therapy. The aim of this study was to compare the use of reperfusion therapy and treatment delays in patients with or without a history of mental illness. METHODS: A nationwide registry-based cohort study of patients with ischemic stroke. We combined data from the Danish Stroke Registry and the Danish Quality Database for Prehospital Emergency Medical Services from 2016 to 2017 containing information on reperfusion therapy (thrombolysis or thrombectomy) and relevant time stamps. Patients were categorized according to the severity of their mental health history (how recent and severity, for example, hospital- versus primary-based care). RESULTS: A total of 19 592 admissions were included (18% had a minor, 3% had a moderate, and 3% had a history of major mental illness). Significant differences were found regarding age, comorbidity, and socioeconomic factors. Reperfusion therapy was used in 17% of patients. Patients with a history of mental illness were less likely to receive reperfusion therapy: risk ratios with 95% CI were 0.79 (0.72-0.86) for minor, 0.85 (0.72-0.99) for moderate, and 0.63 (0.51-0.77) for patients with a history major mental illness, respectively. Total prehospital delay was longer for patients with a history of major mental illness compared to patients with no history of mental illness, especially when no call had been made to the emergency medical service. The median times from symptom onset to hospital arrival was 811 minutes (197-2845) and 115 minutes (41-188), respectively. We found no differences regarding door-to-needle time, response time, on-scene time, transport time, nor in time-to-imaging among patients arriving within 4 hours from symptoms onset between patients with and without a history of mental illness. CONCLUSIONS: Almost one-quarter of patients with ischemic stroke had a history of mental illness. Regardless of severity of mental illness, these patients were less likely to receive reperfusion therapy. Longer delays from symptom onset to hospital arrival contributed to the patients' risk of not being eligible for reperfusion therapy.

Activation of Citizen Responders to Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest During the COVID-19 Outbreak in Denmark 2020.

Background Little is known about how COVID-19 influenced engagement of citizen responders dispatched to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) by a smartphone application. The objective was to describe and analyze the Danish Citizen Responder Program and bystander interventions (both citizen responders and nondispatched bystanders) during the first COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. Methods and Results All OHCAs from January 1, 2020, to June 30, 2020, with citizen responder activation in 2 regions of Denmark were included. We compared citizen responder engagement for OHCA in the nonlockdown period (January 1, 2020, to March 10, 2020, and April 21, 2020, to June 30, 2020) with the lockdown period (March 11, 2020, to April 20, 2020). Data are displayed in the order lockdown versus nonlockdown period. Bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation rates did not differ in the 2 periods (99% versus 92%; P=0.07). Bystander defibrillation (9% versus 14%; P=0.4) or return-of-spontaneous circulation (23% versus 23%; P=1.0) also did not differ. A similar amount of citizen responders accepted alarms during the lockdown (6 per alarm; interquartile range, 6) compared with the nonlockdown period (5 per alarm; interquartile range, 5) (P=0.05). More citizen responders reported performing chest-compression-only cardiopulmonary resuscitation during lockdown compared with nonlockdown (79% versus 59%; P=0.0029), whereas fewer performed standardized cardiopulmonary resuscitation, including ventilations (19% versus 38%; P=0.0061). Finally, during lockdown, more citizen responders reported being not psychologically affected by attending an OHCA compared with nonlockdown period (68% versus 56%; P<0.0001). Likewise, fewer reported being mildly affected during lockdown (26%) compared with nonlockdown (35%) (P=0.003). Conclusions The COVID-19 lockdown in Denmark was not associated with decreased bystander-initiated resuscitation in OHCAs attended by citizen responders.

Self-rated worry is associated with hospital admission in out-of-hours telephone triage - a prospective cohort study.

OBJECTIVE: Telephone triage manages patient flow in acute care, but a lack of visual cues and vague descriptions of symptoms challenges clinical decision making. We aim to investigate the association between the caller's subjective perception of illness severity expressed as "degree-of-worry" (DOW) and hospital admissions within 48 h. DESIGN AND SETTING: A prospective cohort study was performed from January 24th to February 9th, 2017 at the Medical Helpline 1813 (MH1813) in Copenhagen, Denmark. The MH1813 is a primary care out-of-hours service. PARTICIPANTS: Of 38,787 calls received at the MH1813, 11,338 met the inclusion criteria (caller being patient or close friend/relative and agreement to participate). Participants rated their DOW on a 5-point scale (1 = minimum worry, 5 = maximum worry) before talking to a call handler. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Information on hospitalization within 48 h after the call, was obtained from the Danish National Patient Register. The association was assessed using logistic regression in three models: 1) crude, 2) age-and-gender adjusted and 3) age, gender, co-morbidity, reason for calling and caller status adjusted. RESULTS: A total of 581 participants (5.1%) were admitted to the hospital, of whom 170 (11.3%) presented with a maximum DOW, with a crude odds ratio (OR) for hospitalization of 6.1 (95% confidence interval (CI) 3.9 to 9.6) compared to minimum DOW. Estimates showed dose-response relationship between DOW and hospitalization. In the fully adjusted model, the ORs decreased to 3.1 (95%CI 2.0 to 5.0) for DOW = 5, 3.2 (2.0 to 5.0) for DOW = 4, 1.6 (1.0 to 2.6) for DOW = 3 and 0.8 (0.5 to 1.4) for DOW = 2 compared to minimum DOW. CONCLUSION: Patients' self-assessment of illness severity as DOW was associated with subsequent hospital admission. Further, it may be beneficial in supporting clinical decision making in telephone triage. Finally, it might be useful as a measure to facilitate patient participation in the triage process.

The Danish quality database for prehospital emergency medical services.

AIM OF DATABASE: The aim of the Danish quality database for prehospital emergency medical services (QEMS) is to assess, monitor, and improve the quality of prehospital emergency medical service care in the entire prehospital patient pathway. The aim of this review is to describe the design and the implementation of QEMS. STUDY POPULATION: The study population consists of all "112 patient contacts" defined as emergency patients, where the entrance to health care is a 112 call forwarded to one of the five regional emergency medical coordination centers in Denmark since January 1, 2014. Estimated annual number of included "112 patients" is 300,000-350,000. MAIN VARIABLES: We defined nine quality indicators and the following variables: time stamps for emergency calls received at one of the five regional emergency medical coordination centers, dispatch of prehospital unit(s), arrival of first prehospital unit, arrival of first supplemental prehospital unit, and mission completion. Finally, professional level and type of the prehospital resource dispatched to an incident and end-of-mission status (mission completed by phone, on scene, or admission to hospital) are registered. DESCRIPTIVE DATA: Descriptive data included age, region, and Danish Index for Emergency Care including urgency level. CONCLUSION: QEMS is a new database under establishment and is expected to provide the basis for quality improvement in the prehospital setting and in the entire patient care pathway, for example, by providing prehospital data for research and other quality databases.