Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Traumatic injury remains an unacceptably high contributor to morbidity and mortality rates across the United States. Gender-specific research in trauma and emergency resuscitation has become a rising priority. ⋯ Nominal group technique was used for the consensus-building process and a combination of face-to-face meetings, monthly conference calls, e-mail discussions, and preconference surveys were used to refine the research questions. The resulting research agenda focuses on opportunities to improve patient outcomes by expanding research in sex- and gender-specific emergency care in the field of traumatic injury and resuscitation.
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Early antibiotics reduce mortality in patients with severe sepsis and septic shock. Recent work demonstrated that women experience greater delays to antibiotic administration, but it is unknown if this relationship remains after adjusting for factors such as source of infection. ⋯ Women experience longer delays to initial antibiotics among patients with severe sepsis or septic shock, even after adjusting for infectious source. Pneumonia was associated with shorter times to antibiotic administration. Future research is necessary to investigate contributors to delayed antibiotic administration in women.
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Mental illness is a growing, and largely unaddressed, problem for the population and for emergency department (ED) patients in particular. Extensive literature outlines sex and gender differences in mental illness' epidemiology and risk and protective factors. ⋯ Our consensus group used the nominal group technique to outline major gaps in knowledge and research priorities for these areas, including the influence of violence and other risk factors on the course of mental illness for ED patients. Our consensus group urges the pursuit of this research in general and conscious use of a gender lens when conducting, analyzing, and authoring future ED-based investigations of mental illness.