Epidemiology of patients assessed for trauma by Swedish ambulance services: a retrospective registry study

Abstract

Abstract Background There is a lack of knowledge regarding the epidemiology of severe trauma assessed by Swedish emergency medical services (EMS). Aim To investigate the prevalence of trauma in Sweden assessed by EMS from a national perspective and describe patient demography, aetiology, trauma type, prehospital triage and clinical outcomes. Methods Data from two national quality registries, the Swedish Ambulance Registry and the Swedish Trauma Registry (SweTrau) were collected from January 1 to December 31, 2019. Inclusion criteria were an Emergency Symptoms and Signs code equivalent to trauma in the Swedish Ambulance Registry and criteria fulfilled for SweTrau inclusion. Exclusion criteria were patients 15. 12% required invasive treatment, 11% were discharged with severe disability and the 30-day mortality rate was 3.6%. Conclusion In this cross-sectional study, 14% of the primary EMS missions for one year were caused by trauma. However, only a small proportion of these cases are severe injuries, and the risk of severe disabilities and death appears to be limited. The most frequent aetiology of a severe trauma is injury caused by a car, and most severe traumas are blunt. Severe traumas are given the highest priority at the dispatch centre in the vast majority of cases, but nearly one-third of these cases are considered a low priority by the EMS nurse. The latter leaves room for improvement.

Keywords

• Trauma
• Injury
• Emergency medical services
• Ambulance services
• Patient
• Severity