BMJ open
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Observational Study
Retrospective observational study of emergency department syndromic surveillance data during air pollution episodes across London and Paris in 2014.
Poor air quality (AQ) is a global public health issue and AQ events can span across countries. Using emergency department (ED) syndromic surveillance from England and France, we describe changes in human health indicators during periods of particularly poor AQ in London and Paris during 2014. ⋯ This work demonstrates the public health value of syndromic surveillance during air pollution incidents. There is potential for further cross-border harmonisation to provide Europe-wide early alerting to health impacts and improve future public health messaging to healthcare services to provide warning of increases in demand.
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We examined trends of diagnosis-specific work disability before and after ischaemic heart disease (IHD). ⋯ An IHD event was strongly associated with an increase in work disability due to diseases of the circulatory system, especially among men and particularly in the first postevent year.
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Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is one of the leading causes of death in industrialised countries. Survival depends on prompt identification of cardiac arrest and on the quality and timing of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and defibrillation. For laypeople, there has been a growing interest on hands-only CPR, meaning continuous chest compression without interruption to perform ventilations. It has been demonstrated that intentional interruptions in hands-only CPR can increase its quality. The aim of this randomised trial is to compare three CPR protocols performed with different intentional interruptions with hands-only CPR. ⋯ This is a prospective randomised trial performed in eight training centres. Laypeople who passed a basic life support course will be randomised to one of the four CPR protocols in an 8 min simulated cardiac arrest scenario on a manikin: (1) 30 compressions and 2 s pause; (2) 50 compressions and 5 s pause; (3) 100 compressions and 10 s pause; (4) hands-only. The calculated sample size is 552 people. The primary outcome is the percentage of chest compression performed with correct depth evaluated by a computerised feedback system (Laerdal QCPR). ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: . Due to the nature of the study, we obtained a waiver from the Ethics Committee (IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo, Pavia, Italy). All participants will sign an informed consent form before randomisation. The results of this study will be published in peer-reviewed journal. The data collected will also be made available in a public data repository.
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Patients with low back pain often seek care in emergency departments, but the problem is that many patients receive unnecessary or ineffective interventions and at the same time miss out on the basics of care, such as advice on self-management. This pattern of care has important consequences for the healthcare system (expensive and inefficient) and for patients (poor health outcomes). We hypothesised that the implementation of an evidence-based model of care for low back pain will improve emergency care by reducing inappropriate overuse of tests and treatments and improving patient outcomes. ⋯ The study received ethical approval from the Sydney Local Health District (Royal Prince Alfred Hospital zone) Ethics Committee (X17-0043). The results of this study will be published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at international conferences.
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Following growing evidence to support the safety, local control (LC) and potential improvement in overall survival (OS) in patients with oligometastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that have been treated with local ablative therapy such as stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) and stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS), we initiate the SARON trial to investigate the impact and feasibility of adding SABR/SRS and radical radiotherapy (RRT) following standard chemotherapy on OS. ⋯ All participants are given a SARON patient information sheet and required to give written informed consent. Results will be submitted for presentation at local and international conferences and expected to be published in a peer-reviewed journal.