NCT06310486

The Emergency Call on Drowning

The Emergency Call on Drowning: A Registry-based Cohort Study of the Characteristics, Predictors, and Outcomes of Fatal and Non-fatal Drowning

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: —
• Study type: Observational
• Enrollment: 1,500 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Prehospital Center, Region Zealand · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: —
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This study aims to 1) describe patient-, setting-, and dispatcher-related characteristics in drowning-related emergency calls to the Emergency Medical Dispatch Centre (1-1-2 emergency phone) and 2) factors associated with 30-day survival. The investigators will separately analyse drowning-related out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) and drowning-related non-OHCA. If feasible, the investigators will qualitatively analyse the calls to identify and describe potential barriers for an optimal handling strategy.

Detailed description

Previous studies have explored emergency priority levels, emergency call categorisations, barriers to assessing an emergency call, and the effects on the outcome. However, this has never been done specifically for drowning patients. Drowning presents a rare and special circumstance that may be particularly complex for laypeople and medical dispatchers for several reasons. Despite this complexity and medical dispatchers' potential to optimize treatment and improve outcomes in drowning incidents, the characteristics of drowning-related emergency calls have never been explored. This protocol presents a registry-based cohort study of drowning-related emergency medical calls to the EMDC (1-1-2 emergency phone) with 30-day follow-up. Data from the national Danish Prehospital Drowning Data will be linked with audio files and electronic data from the EMDC database using the patient's unique civil registration numbers. The investigators will construct two lists of variables: one list for OHCA and one for non-OHCA emergency calls. Data collection from the EMDC database will consist of three phases. In phase 1, three independent reviewers will listen to 20 emergency calls on drowning (10 OHCA and 10 non-OHCA) to identify relevant variables from the calls (e.g., presence of key symptoms \[since an emergency call often does not contain information regarding the absence of symptoms\], communication barriers \[anything that comes in the way of receiving and understanding information\], pre-arrival instructions to callers etc.). In phase 2, the same reviewers will listen to 20 other emergency calls (10 OHCA and 10 non-OHCA) and use the lists for data collection to determine the data availability and completeness. This may result in modifications to the lists of variables. The investigators will use the results as a basis for reviewer training and calculate inter-rater reliability. Once the reviewers' performances are satisfying (defined as Fleiss kappa ≥0.8), the investigators will move to phase 3 and collect data for all the drowning calls. Emergency calls will be stratified as OHCA or non-OHCA calls.

Conditions

• Drowning
• Drowning; Anoxia
• Drowning, Near
• Drowning; Asphyxia
• Drowning and Nonfatal Submersion
• Drowning or Immersion of Unknown Intent
• Drowning and Submersion, Undetermined Intent
• Drowning and Submersion While in Bath-Tub
• Drowning and Submersion While in Natural Water
• Drowning and Submersion Due to Sailboat Sinking
• Drowning and Submersion Due to Fall Off Ship
• Drowning and Submersion While in Swimming-Pool

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Drowning-related OHCA	These patients were involved in a drowning incident (submersion or immersion in liquid) and experienced out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), defined as being unconscious and not breathing normally at any time in the prehospital setting. Some of these patients may die as a consequence of the submersion injury (fatal drowning), while others may survive (non-fatal drowning).
OTHER	Drowning-related non-OHCA	These patients were involved in a drowning incident (submersion or immersion in liquid) but did not experience an OHCA. Some of these patients may die as a consequence of the submersion injury (fatal drowning), while others may survive (non-fatal drowning).

Timeline

• Start date: 2016-01-01
• Primary completion: 2025-12-31
• Completion: 2025-12-31
• First posted: 2024-03-15
• Last updated: 2025-06-04

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Denmark