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Why and when citizens call for emergency help: an observational study of 211,193 medical emergency calls

Overview of attention for article published in Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine, November 2015
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Title
Why and when citizens call for emergency help: an observational study of 211,193 medical emergency calls
Published in
Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine, November 2015
DOI 10.1186/s13049-015-0169-0
Pubmed ID
Authors

Thea Palsgaard Møller, Annette Kjær Ersbøll, Janne Schurmann Tolstrup, Doris Østergaard, Søren Viereck, Jerry Overton, Fredrik Folke, Freddy Lippert

Abstract

A medical emergency call is citizens' access to pre-hospital emergency care and ambulance services. Emergency medical dispatchers are gatekeepers to provision of pre-hospital resources and possibly hospital admissions. We explored causes for access, emergency priority levels, and temporal variation within seasons, weekdays, and time of day for emergency calls to the emergency medical dispatch center in Copenhagen in a two-year study period (December 1(st), 2011 to November 30(th), 2013). Descriptive analysis was performed for causes for access and emergency priority levels. A Poisson regression model was used to calculate adjusted ratio estimates for the association between seasons, weekdays, and time of day overall and stratified by emergency priority levels. We analyzed 211,193 emergency calls for temporal variation. Of those, 167,635 calls were eligible for analysis of causes and emergency priority level. "Unclear problem" was the most frequent category (19 %). The five most common causes with known origin were categorized as "Wounds, fractures, minor injuries" (13 %), "Chest pain/heart disease" (11 %), "Accidents" (9 %), "Intoxication, poisoning, drug overdose" (8 %), and "Breathing difficulties" (7 %). The highest emergency priority levels (Emergency priority level A and B) were assigned in 81 % of calls. In the analysis of temporal variation, the total number of calls peaked at wintertime (26 %), Saturdays (16 %), and during daytime (39 %). The pattern of citizens' contact causes fell into four overall categories: unclear problems, medical problems, intoxication and accidents. The majority of calls were urgent. The magnitude of unclear problems represents a modifiable factor and highlights the potential for further improvement of supportive dispatch priority tools or educational interventions at dispatch centers. Temporal variation was identified within seasons, weekdays and time of day and reflects both system load and disease occurrence. Data on contact patterns could be utilized in a public health perspective, benchmarking of EMS systems, and ultimately development of best practice in the area of emergency medicine.

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 118 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United Kingdom 1 <1%
Unknown 117 99%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 20 17%
Student > Bachelor 18 15%
Student > Ph. D. Student 11 9%
Researcher 9 8%
Other 8 7%
Other 19 16%
Unknown 33 28%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 39 33%
Nursing and Health Professions 18 15%
Social Sciences 4 3%
Computer Science 3 3%
Business, Management and Accounting 3 3%
Other 12 10%
Unknown 39 33%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2. 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 21 January 2022.
All research outputs
#13,542,613
of 22,957,478 outputs
Outputs from Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine
#827
of 1,263 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#135,951
of 285,717 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine
#14
of 28 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,957,478 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 39th percentile – i.e., 39% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,263 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 10.2. This one is in the 31st percentile – i.e., 31% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
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 285,717 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 50% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 28 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 50% of its contemporaries.