Stroke awareness among Dubai emergency medical service staff and impact of an educational intervention.

Publisher: Biomed Central Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 101462768 Publication Model: Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1756-0500 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 17560500 NLM ISO Abbreviation: BMC Res Notes Subsets: MEDLINE

Original Publication: London : Biomed Central, 2008.

Emergency Medical Services* ; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice* ; Stroke*/diagnosis ; Stroke*/therapy; Health Personnel/*education; Adult ; Awareness ; Cross-Sectional Studies ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; United Arab Emirates ; Young Adult

Background: Emergency medical services (EMS) play a vital role in expediting hospital arrival in stroke patients. The objective of our study was to assess the level of awareness regarding pre-hospital identification and management of acute stroke among EMS Staff in Dubai and to evaluate the impact of an educational lecture on their knowledge.
Methods: Ours was a cross-sectional study with a pre-test and post-test design. The intervention was an educational lecture, based on the updated guidelines in pre-hospital care of acute stroke. Participants were assessed before and after the intervention on various aspects of stroke care. Paired t test were used to compare the impact of the intervention.
Results: A total of 274 EMS workers participated in our study. The baseline knowledge of participants regarding stroke types was inadequate with only 68% correctly identifying these. 79% were able to name the cardinal stroke symptoms. Knowledge of stroke mimics was poor with only 6.6% identifying stroke mimics correctly. With respect to management, most participants were unable to correctly identify the points to illicit in the history of an acute stroke patient (25.2%) and also the steps in pre-hospital management (40%). All these aspects showed remarkable improvement post intervention.
Conclusion: The baseline awareness of most aspects of acute stroke identification and management was poor in our EMS participants. Our educational lecture proved effective in improving this knowledge when tested immediately post intervention. However, there is a need to re-assess this at periodic intervals to identify the need for refresher courses on pre-hospital stroke management.

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Keywords: Education; Prehospital care; Stroke; Thrombolysis

Date Created: 20170708 Date Completed: 20180409 Latest Revision: 20181113

20240628

PMC5500952

10.1186/s13104-017-2585-x

28683821