Emergency medicine journal : EMJ
-
This study was conducted to determine mothers' knowledge about fever, and their attitudes and responses to fever in children, along with the influence of demographic characteristics on the level of knowledge, and to identify occurrences of fear of fever. ⋯ Increased information about fevers geared towards the caregivers of children, particularly mothers, would prevent the unnecessary treatment of children, as well as minimising delayed and insufficient responses to fever.
-
The acute heart failure index (AHFI) is a previously derived prediction rule to identify patients presenting to emergency departments (ED) with decompensated heart failure (DHF) at low risk of early life-threatening events. ⋯ The results are consistent with those previously reported for the low-risk subgroup of the AHFI. Further research is needed to determine the impact, safety and full range of generalisability of the AHFI as an adjunct to decision making.
-
Acute pulmonary embolism (PE) is associated with high mortality risk. Early diagnosis is difficult because of non-specific clinical presentation and delay in imaging confirmation. Manchester Triage (MT) prioritises patients on the basis of illness severity and potentially recognises those with higher mortality risk. No studies of the role and impact of MT on rapid PE diagnosis and in-hospital mortality (IHM) have been carried out. ⋯ MT has high sensitivity in identifying patients with PE at risk. Those patients assigned as MOb ≤10 min have increased markers of illness severity and higher IHM. MT acts as a protective system in this challenging set and should be used as a patient's first assessment, aiding the emergency medical team to recognise those in need of urgent assessment and treatment.