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Characteristics of Emergency Medical Service Missions in Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest and Death Cases in the Periods of Before and After the COVID-19 Pandemic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 October 2021

Parisa Hasani-Sharamin Open the ORCID record for Parisa Hasani-Sharamin [Opens in a new window] ,
Peyman Saberian Open the ORCID record for Peyman Saberian [Opens in a new window] ,
Mostafa Sadeghi Open the ORCID record for Mostafa Sadeghi [Opens in a new window] ,
Seyed Mohammad Mireskandari Open the ORCID record for Seyed Mohammad Mireskandari [Opens in a new window]  and
Alireza Baratloo Open the ORCID record for Alireza Baratloo [Opens in a new window]
Parisa Hasani-Sharamin
Affiliation:
Prehospital and Hospital Emergency Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Tehran Emergency Medical Service Center, Tehran, Iran
Peyman Saberian*
Affiliation:
Prehospital and Hospital Emergency Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Department of Anesthesiology, Imam Khomeini Hospital Complex, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Mostafa Sadeghi
Affiliation:
Department of Anesthesiology, Shariati Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Seyed Mohammad Mireskandari
Affiliation:
Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Alireza Baratloo
Affiliation:
Prehospital and Hospital Emergency Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Department of Emergency Medicine, Sina Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
*
Correspondence: Peyman Saberian Department of Anesthesiology Imam Khomeini Hospital Complex Tehran University of Medical SciencesTehran, Iran E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Background:

Some studies in countries affected by the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have shown that the missions of Emergency Medical Service (EMS) have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the rate of death and out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) has been increased due to the direct and indirect effects of COVID-19.

Objective:

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the process of EMS missions, death, and OHCA.

Methods:

This cross-sectional study was performed in Tehran, Iran. All conducted missions in the first six months of the three consecutive solar years of March 21 until September 22 of 2018-2020, which were registered in the registry bank of the Tehran EMS center, were assessed and compared. Based on the opinion of experts, the technician’s on-scene diagnoses were categorized into 14 groups, and then death and OHCA cases were compared.

Results:

In this study, the data of 1,050,376 missions performed in three study periods were analyzed. In general, the number of missions in 2020 was 17.83% fewer than that of 2019 (P < .001); however, the number of missions in 2019 was 30.33% more than that of 2018. On the other hand, the missions of respiratory problems, cardiopulmonary arrest, infectious diseases, and poisoning were increased in 2020 compared to that of 2019. The raw number of OHCA and death cases respectively in 2018, 2019, and 2020 were 25.0, 22.7, and 28.6 cases per 1,000 missions. Of all patients who died in 2020, 4.9% were probable/confirmed COVID-19 cases. The history of heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, and respiratory disease in patients in 2020 was more frequent than that of the other two years.

Conclusion:

This study showed that the number of missions in the Tehran EMS in 2020 were decreased compared to that of 2019, however the number of missions in 2019 was more than that of 2018. Respiratory problems, infectious diseases, poisoning, death, and OHCA were increased compared to the previous two years and cardiovascular complaints, neurological problems, and motor vehicle collisions (MVCs) in 2020 were fewer than that of the other two years

Keywords

COVID-19Emergency Medical Serviceout-of-hospital cardiac arrest
Type
Original Research
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 36 , Issue 6 , December 2021 , pp. 676 - 683
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine

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