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ObjectivesCallers with myocardial infarction presenting atypical symptoms in telephone consultations when calling out-of-hours medical services risk misrecognition. We investigated characteristics in callers’ interpretation of experienced conditions through communication with call-takers.MethodsRecording of calls resulting in not having an ambulance dispatched for 21 callers who contacted a non-emergency medical helpline, Copenhagen (Denmark), up to one week before they were diagnosed with myocardial infarction. Qualitative content analysis was applied.ResultsAwareness of illness, remedial actions and previous experiences contributed to callers’ interpretation of the experienced condition. Unclear symptoms resulted in callers reacting to their interpretation by being unsure and worried. Negotiation of the interpretation was seen when callers tested the call-taker’s interpretation of the condition and when either caller or call-taker suggested: “wait and see”.ConclusionCallers sought to interpret the experienced conditions but faced challenges when the conditions appeared unclear and did not correspond to the health system’s understanding of symptoms associated with myocardial infarction. It affected the communicative interaction with the call-taker and influenced the call-taker’s choice of response. OBJECTIVES: Callers with myocardial infarction presenting atypical symptoms in telephone consultations when calling out-of-hours medical services risk misrecognition. We investigated characteristics in callers' interpretation of experienced conditions through communication with call-takers. METHODS: Recording of calls resulting in not having an ambulance dispatched for 21 callers who contacted a non-emergency medical helpline, Copenhagen (Denmark), up to one week before they were diagnosed with myocardial infarction. Qualitative content analysis was applied. RESULTS: Awareness of illness, remedial actions and previous experiences contributed to callers' interpretation of the experienced condition. Unclear symptoms resulted in callers reacting to their interpretation by being unsure and worried. Negotiation of the interpretation was seen when callers tested the call-taker's interpretation of the condition and when either caller or call-taker suggested: "wait and see". CONCLUSION: Callers sought to interpret the experienced conditions but faced challenges when the conditions appeared unclear and did not correspond to the health system's understanding of symptoms associated with myocardial infarction. It affected the communicative interaction with the call-taker and influenced the call-taker's choice of response. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Call-takers, as part of the decision-making process, could ask further questions about the caller's insecurity and worry. It might facilitate faster recognition of conditions warranting hospital referral.

AIM: There is limited evidence regarding prodromal symptoms of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). We aimed to describe patient characteristics, prodromal symptoms, and prognosis of patients contacting emergency medical services (EMS) within 24 hours before OHCA.METHODS: We identified all OHCA treated by Copenhagen EMS from 2016 through 2018 using the Danish Cardiac Arrest Registry and linked them to emergency calls. We included all pre-arrest calls by patients or bystanders if they were performed 1) within 24 hours before the OHCA call or 2) during the OHCA event for EMS-witnessed OHCA. Calls were reviewed by healthcare professionals using a survey guide.RESULTS: Among 4,071 patients, 481 patients (12%) had 539 calls within 24 hours prior to OHCA (60% male, median age 74 years of age). The patient spoke on the phone in 25% of calls. The most common symptoms were breathing problems (59%), confusion (23%), unconsciousness (20%), chest pain (20%), and paleness (19%). Patients with breathing problems compared to chest pain were more likely to be ≤75 years of age (55% versus 35%), less likely to be male (52% versus 73%), have shockable rhythm (10% versus 38%), receive bystander defibrillation (6% versus 19%) or EMS defibrillation (15% versus 65%), achieve return of spontaneous circulation (37% versus 68%) and survive 30 days following OHCA (10% versus 50%).CONCLUSION: More than 10% of patients with OHCA had a call to EMS within 24 hours before OHCA. The most common symptom was breathing problems which compared to chest pain had lower 30-day survival.

AIMS: This study aimed to examine whether socioeconomic differences exist in long-term outcomes after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA).METHODS: We included 2309 30-day OHCA survivors ≥ 30 years of age from the Danish Cardiac Arrest Registry, 2001-2014, divided in tertiles of household income (low, medium, high). Absolute probabilities were estimated using logistic regression for 1-year outcomes and cause-specific Cox regression for 5-year outcomes. Differences between income-groups were standardized with respect to age, sex, education and comorbidities.RESULTS: High-income compared to low-income patients had highest 1-year (96.4% vs. 84.2%) and 5-year (87.6% vs. 64.1%) survival, and lowest 1-year (11.3% vs. 7.4%) and 5-year (13.7% vs. 8.6%) risk of anoxic brain damage/nursing home admission. The corresponding standardized probability differences were 8.2% (95%CI 4.7-11.6%) and 13.9% (95%CI 8.2-19.7%) for 1- and 5-year survival, respectively; and -4.5% (95%CI -8.2 to -1.2%) and -5.1% (95%CI -9.3 to -0.9%) for 1- and 5-year risk of anoxic brain damage/nursing home admission, respectively. Among 831 patients < 66 years working prior to OHCA, 72.1% returned to work within 1 year and 80.8% within 5 years. High-income compared to low-income patients had the highest chance of 1-year (76.4% vs. 58.8%) and 5-year (85.3% vs. 70.6%) return to work with the corresponding absolute probability difference of 18.0% (95%CI 3.8-32.7%) for 1-year and 9.4% (95%CI -3.4 to 22.3%) for 5-year.CONCLUSION: Patients of high socioeconomic status had higher probability of long-term survival and return to work, and lower risk of anoxic brain damage/nursing home admission after OHCA compared to patients of low socioeconomic status.

BackgroundMyocardial infarction (MI) patients presenting without chest pain are a diagnostic challenge. They receive suboptimal prehospital management and have high mortality. To elucidate potential benefits of improved management, we analysed expected outcome among non-chest pain MI patients if hypothetically they (1) received emergency ambulances/acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) as often as observed for chest pain patients, and (2) all received emergency ambulance/ASA.MethodsWe sampled calls to emergency and non-emergency medical services for patients hospitalized with MI within 24 h and categorized calls as chest pain/non-chest pain. Outcomes were 30-day mortality and a 1-year combined outcome of re-infarction, heart failure admission, and mortality. Targeted minimum loss-based estimation was used for all statistical analyses.ResultsAmong 5418 calls regarding MI patients, 24% (1309) were recorded with non-chest pain. In total, 90% (3689/4109) of chest pain and 40% (525/1309) of non-chest pain patients received an emergency ambulance, and 73% (2668/3632) and 37% (192/518) of chest pain and non-chest pain patients received prehospital ASA. Providing ambulances to all non-chest pain patients was not associated with improved survival. Prehospital administration of ASA to all emergency ambulance transports of non-chest pain MI patients was expected to reduce 30-day mortality by 5.3% (CI 95%: [1.7%;9%]) from 12.8% to 7.4%. No significant reduction was found for the 1-year combined outcome (2.6% CI 95% [− 2.9%;8.1%]). In comparison, the observed 30-day mortality was 3% among ambulance-transported chest pain MI patients.ConclusionsOur study found large differences in the prehospital management of MI patients with and without chest pain. Improved prehospital ASA administration to non-chest pain MI patients could possibly reduce 30-day mortality, but long-term effects appear limited. Non-chest pain MI patients are difficult to identify prehospital and possible unintended effects of ASA might outweigh the potential benefits of improving the prehospital management. Future research should investigate ways to improve the prehospital recognition of MI in the absence of chest pain.

Denmark implemented early widespread social distancing to reduce pressure on the healthcare system from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, with the aims to reduce mortality. Unintended consequences might be delays in treatment for other diseases and subsequent mortality. We examined national all-cause mortality comparing weeks 1–27 in 2020 and 2015–2019. This registry-based study used Danish national registry data until 5 July 2020. We examined all-cause mortality rates among all deaths recorded from 2015 to 2020 and among chronic conditions (cardiovascular (cardiac & circulatory), chronic pulmonary, chronic kidney disease, cancer, and diabetes), comparing each week in 2020 to weeks in 2015–2019. In 2020, there were 28,363 deaths in weeks 1–27 (30 December 2019–5 July 2020), the mean deaths in 2015–2019 were 28,630 deaths (standard deviation 784). Compared to previous years, the mortality rate in weeks 3–10 of 2020 was low, peaking in week 14 (17.6 per 100,000 persons in week 9, 19.9 per 100,000 in week 14). Comorbidity prevalence among deceased individuals was similar in 2020 and 2015–2019: 71.1% of all deceased had a prior cardiovascular diagnosis, 30.0% of all deceased had a prior cardiac diagnosis. There were 493 deaths with COVID-19 in weeks 11–27, (59.8% male), and 75.1% had a prior cardiovascular diagnosis. Weekly mortality rates for pre-existing chronic conditions peaked in week 14, and then declined. During the COVID-19 pandemic, due to timely lockdown measures, the mortality rate in Denmark has not increased compared to the mortality rates in the same period during 2015–2019. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s10654-020-00680-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Background Households are high-risk settings for the transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Severity of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is likely associated with the infectious dose of SARS-CoV-2 exposure. We therefore aimed to assess the association between SARS-CoV-2 exposure within households and COVID-19 severity. Methods We performed a Danish, nationwide, register-based, cohort study including laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2–infected individuals from 22 February 2020 to 6 October 2020. Household exposure to SARS-CoV-2 was defined as having 1 individual test positive for SARS-CoV-2 within the household. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate the association between “critical COVID-19” within and between households with and without secondary cases. Results From 15 063 multiperson households, 19 773 SARS-CoV-2–positive individuals were included; 11 632 were categorized as index cases without any secondary household cases; 3431 as index cases with secondary cases, that is, 22.8% of multiperson households; and 4710 as secondary cases. Critical COVID-19 occurred in 2.9% of index cases living with no secondary cases, 4.9% of index cases with secondary cases, and 1.3% of secondary cases. The adjusted hazard ratio for critical COVID-19 among index cases vs secondary cases within the same household was 2.50 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.88–3.34), 2.27 (95% CI, 1.77–2.93) for index cases in households with no secondary cases vs secondary cases, and 1.1 (95% CI, .93–1.30) for index cases with secondary cases vs index cases without secondary cases. Conclusions We found no increased hazard ratio of critical COVID-19 among household members of infected SARS-CoV-2 index cases.

OBJECTIVES: Dietary recommendations for individuals with diabetes are easy to provide, but adherence is difficult to monitor. The objective of this study was to investigate whether there was a difference in grocery purchases between households with and without diabetes.STUDY DESIGN: Cohort study.METHODS: Consumer purchase data in 2019 was collected from 6662 households donating their supermarket receipts via a receipt collecting service. Of these households, 718 included at least one individual with diabetes. The monetary percentages spent on specific food groups were used to characterize households using all purchases in 2019. A probability index model was used to compare households with diabetes to households without diabetes.RESULTS: We included 405,264 shopping trips in 2019 attributed to 6662 households. Both households with and without diabetes spent the highest monetary percentage on sweets (with diabetes: 9.3%, without diabetes: 8.8%), with no statistically significant difference detected. However, compared to households without diabetes, households with diabetes had a significantly higher probability of spending a higher monetary percentage on butter, oil and dressings; non-sugary drinks; processed red meat and ready meals as well as a significantly lower probability of spending a higher monetary percentage on accessory compounds; alcoholic beverages; eggs; grains; rice and pasta, and raw vegetables.CONCLUSIONS: Households with diabetes spent a relatively higher monetary value on several unhealthy foods and less on several healthy groceries compared to households without diabetes. There is a need for more diabetes self-management education focused on including more healthy dietary choices in their household grocery purchases.

Background It remains challenging to identify patients at risk of out‐of‐hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). We aimed to examine health care contacts in patients before OHCA compared with the general population that did not experience an OHCA. Methods and Results Patients with OHCA with a presumed cardiac cause were identified from the Danish Cardiac Arrest Registry (2001–2014) and their health care contacts (general practitioner [GP]/hospital) were examined up to 1 year before OHCA. In a case‐control study (1:9), OHCA contacts were compared with an age‐ and sex‐matched background population. Separately, patients with OHCA were examined by the contact type (GP/hospital/both/no contact) within 2 weeks before OHCA. We included 28 955 patients with OHCA. The weekly percentages of patient contacts with GP the year before OHCA were constant (25%) until 1 week before OHCA when they markedly increased (42%). Weekly percentages of patient contacts with hospitals the year before OHCA gradually increased during the last 6 months (3.5%–6.6%), peaking at the second week (6.8%) before OHCA; mostly attributable to cardiovascular diseases (21%). In comparison, there were fewer weekly contacts among controls with 13% for GP and 2% for hospital contacts ( P Conclusions The health care contacts of patients with OHCA nearly doubled leading up to the OHCA event, with more than half of patients having health care contacts within 2 weeks before arrest. This could have implications for future preventive strategies.

Aims We examined associations between symptom presentation and chance of receiving an emergency dispatch and 30-day mortality among patients with acute myocardial infarction (MI). Methods and results Copenhagen, Denmark has a 24-h non-emergency medical helpline and an emergency number 1-1-2 (equivalent to 9-1-1). Both services register symptoms/purpose of calls. Among patients with MI as either hospital diagnosis or cause of death within 72 h after a call, the primary symptom was categorized as chest pain, atypical symptoms (breathing problems, unclear problem, central nervous system symptoms, abdominal/back/urinary, other cardiac symptoms, and other atypical symptoms), unconsciousness, non-informative symptoms, and no recorded symptoms. We identified 4880 emergency and 3456 non-emergency calls from patients with MI. The most common symptom was chest pain (N = 5219) followed by breathing problems (N = 556). Among patients with chest pain, 95% (3337/3508) of emergency calls and 76% (1306/1711) of non-emergency calls received emergency dispatch. Mortality was 5% (163/3508) and 3% (49/1711) for emergency/non-emergency calls, respectively. For atypical symptoms 62% (554/900) and 17% (137/813) of emergency/non-emergency calls received emergency dispatch and mortality was 23% (206/900) and 15% (125/813). Among unconscious, patients 99%/100% received emergency dispatch and mortality was 71%/75% for emergency/non-emergency calls. Standardized 30-day mortality was 4.3% for chest pain and 15.6% for atypical symptoms, and associations between symptoms and emergency dispatch remained in subgroups of age and sex. Conclusion Myocardial infarction patients presenting with atypical symptoms when calling for help have a reduced chance of receiving an emergency dispatch and increased 30-day mortality compared to MI patients with chest pain.

INTRODUCTION: Cardiac arrest patients presenting with back pain are at risk of not receiving the appropriate help when calling emergency medical services. In telephone consultations regarding patients with back pain preceding an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, we investigated how communication between caller and call-taker influenced the call-taker's interpretation of back pain descriptions and decision-making about choice of response.METHOD: The study was conducted using 20 recorded phone calls from 17 patients who contacted the Copenhagen Emergency Medical Services (Denmark) reporting back pain up to 24 hours before an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Qualitative content analysis was applied.RESULTS: Two main categories emerged: (1) reasons, including subcategories: reported conditions, descriptions of conditions, patient's interpretation of condition and patient's own remedial actions; and (2) considerations, including subcategories: assessment of the severity, call-taker's interpretation of the condition, arguments for chosen response and conditions not facilitating further communication by the call-taker.CONCLUSION: In telephone consultations regarding patients with back pain preceding an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest the communication was influenced by the communicative preconditions of the call-taker. Communication in consultations where ambulances were not dispatched was characterized by complex descriptions of symptoms not easily fitting into the health system's interpretations of conditions warranting an urgent response.

Aim As proxy for initiation of the first link in the Chain of Survival by the dispatcher, we aimed to investigate the effect of time to first dispatch on 30-day survival among patients with OHCA ultimately receiving the highest-level emergency medical response. Methods We linked data on all OHCA unwitnessed by emergency medical services (EMS) treated by Copenhagen EMS from 2016 through 2018 to corresponding emergency call records. Among patients receiving highest priority emergency response, we calculated time to dispatch as time from start of call to time of first dispatch. Results We included 3548 patients with OHCA. Of these, 94.1% received the highest priority response (median time to dispatch 0.84 min, 25th–75th percentile 0.58–1.24 min). Patients with time to dispatch within one minute compared to three or more minutes were more likely to receive bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (77.3 vs 54.2%), bystander defibrillation (11.5 vs 6.5%) and defibrillation by emergency medical services (24.1 vs 7.5%) and were 2.6-fold more likely to survive 30 days after the OHCA (P = 0.004). Results from multivariate logistic regression were similar: odds ratio (OR) of survival 0.83 per minute increase (95% confidence interval 0.70–1.00, P = 0.04). However, survival was similar between those who received highest priority response and those who did not: OR of survival 0.88 (95% confidence interval 0.53–1.46, P = 0.61). Conclusion Rapid time to dispatch among patients with highest priority response was significantly associated with a higher probability of 30-day survival following OHCA.