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Temporal trends of ambulance time intervals for suspected stroke/transient ischaemic attack (TIA) before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ireland: a quasi-experimental study
Temporal trends of ambulance time intervals for suspected stroke/transient ischaemic attack (TIA) before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ireland: a quasi-experimental study
- Source :
- BMJ Open, Vol 14, Iss 3 (2024)
- Publication Year :
- 2024
- Publisher :
- BMJ Publishing Group, 2024.
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Abstract
- Objectives Time is a fundamental component of acute stroke and transient ischaemic attack (TIA) care, thus minimising prehospital delays is a crucial part of the stroke chain of survival. COVID-19 restrictions were introduced in Ireland in response to the pandemic, which resulted in major societal changes. However, current research on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on prehospital care for stroke/TIA is limited to early COVID-19 waves. Thus, we aimed to investigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on ambulance time intervals and suspected stroke/TIA call volume for adults with suspected stroke and TIA in Ireland, from 2018 to 2021.Design We conducted a secondary data analysis with a quasi-experimental design.Setting We used data from the National Ambulance Service in Ireland. We defined the COVID-19 period as ‘1 March 2020–31 December 2021’ and the pre-COVID-19 period ‘1 January 2018–29 February 2020’.Primary and secondary outcome measures We compared five ambulance time intervals: ‘allocation performance’, ‘mobilisation performance’, ‘response time’, ‘on scene time’ and ‘conveyance time’ between the two periods using descriptive and regression analyses. We also compared call volume for suspected stroke/TIA between the pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 periods using interrupted time series analysis.Participants We included all suspected stroke/TIA cases ≥18 years who called the National Ambulance Service from 2018 to 2021.Results 40 004 cases were included: 19 826 in the pre-COVID-19 period and 20 178 in the COVID-19 period. All ambulance time intervals increased during the pandemic period compared with pre-COVID-19 (p
- Subjects :
- Medicine
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 20446055
- Volume :
- 14
- Issue :
- 3
- Database :
- Directory of Open Access Journals
- Journal :
- BMJ Open
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- edsdoj.5d5df8a72d3d463897453d42f29c5bcf
- Document Type :
- article
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2023-078168