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Critcomms: a national cross-sectional questionnaire based study to investigate prehospital handover practices between ambulance clinicians and specialist prehospital teams in Scotland

Overview of attention for article published in Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine, June 2018
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (88th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (90th percentile)

Mentioned by

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1 blog
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15 X users
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1 Wikipedia page

Citations

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17 Dimensions

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178 Mendeley
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Title
Critcomms: a national cross-sectional questionnaire based study to investigate prehospital handover practices between ambulance clinicians and specialist prehospital teams in Scotland
Published in
Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine, June 2018
DOI 10.1186/s13049-018-0512-3
Pubmed ID
Authors

David Fitzpatrick, Michael McKenna, Edward A. S. Duncan, Colville Laird, Richard Lyon, Alasdair Corfield

Abstract

Poor communication during patient handover is recognised internationally as a root cause of a significant proportion of preventable deaths. Improving the accuracy and quality of handover may reduce associated mortality and morbidity. Although the practice of handover between Ambulance and Emergency Department clinicians has received some attention over recent years there is little evidence to support handover best practice within the prehospital domain. Further research is therefore urgently required to understand the most appropriate way to deliver clinical information exchange in the pre-hospital environment. We aimed to investigate current clinical information exchange practices, perceived challenges and the preferred handover mnemonic for use during transfer of high acuity patients between ambulance clinicians and specialist prehospital teams. A national, cross-sectional questionnaire study. Participants were road based ambulance clinicians (RBAC) or active members of specialist prehospital teams (SPHT) based in Scotland. Over a three month study period there were 247 prehospital incidents involving specialist teams. One hundred ninety individuals completed the questionnaire; 61% [n = 116] RBAC and 39% [n = 74] SPHT. Median length of prehospital experience was 10 years (IQR 5-18). Overall current prehospital handover practices were perceived as being effective (Mdn 4.00; IQR 3-4 [1 = very ineffective - 5 = very effective]) although SPHT clinicians rated handover effectiveness slightly lower than RBAC's (Mdn 3.00 vs 4.00, U = 1842.5, p = .03). 'ATMIST' (Age, Time of onset, Medical complaint/injury, Investigation, Signs and Treatment) was deemed the mnemonic of choice. The clinical variables perceived as essential for handover are not explicitly identified within the SBAR mnemonic. The most frequently reported method of recording and transferring information during handover was via memory (n = 112 and n = 120 respectively) and 'interruptions' were perceived as the most significant barrier to effective handover. While, overall, current prehospital handover practice is perceived as effective this study has identified a number of areas for improvement. These include the development of a shared mental model through system standardisation, innovations to support information recording and delivery, and the clear identification at incidents of a handover lead. Mnemonics must be carefully selected to ensure they explicitly contain the perceived essential clinical variables required for prehospital handover; the mnemonic ATMIST meets these requirements. New theoretically informed, evidence-based interventions, must be developed and tested within existing systems of care to minimise information loss and risk to patients.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 15 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 178 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 178 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Bachelor 27 15%
Student > Master 23 13%
Researcher 11 6%
Student > Postgraduate 11 6%
Student > Ph. D. Student 10 6%
Other 22 12%
Unknown 74 42%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Nursing and Health Professions 52 29%
Medicine and Dentistry 34 19%
Unspecified 6 3%
Psychology 3 2%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 2 1%
Other 5 3%
Unknown 76 43%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 19. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 13 July 2022.
All research outputs
#1,914,973
of 25,390,692 outputs
Outputs from Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine
#167
of 1,363 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#39,149
of 337,652 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine
#4
of 33 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,390,692 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 92nd percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,363 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 10.6. This one has done well, scoring higher than 87% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 337,652 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 88% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 33 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its contemporaries.