According to surveys conducted over the last 10 years, more than 80 % of our population want to live with their loved ones at the end of life. With the ageing of the population and the success of medicine in the early stages of terminal illness, the trajectory and needs at the end of life are gradually changing. The need for health care support is increasing, and for most patients this means the need for 24/7 availability of health care, in this context in the home environment of the terminally ill patient.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Objectives: The mental health of healthcare workers (HCWs) may have improved after the COVID-19 pandemic. We aimed to model the trajectories of psychological distress, depressive symptoms, and resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic and toward its end in HCWs in Czechia and investigate, which COVID-19 work stressors were associated with these trajectories.
Methods: The study included 322 HCWs from the Czech arm of the international HEROES Study who participated in an online questionnaire in two waves during the pandemic and one wave toward its end.
Health care workers have been exposed to COVID-19 more than people in other professions, which may have led to stigmatization, discrimination, and violence toward them, possibly impacting their mental health. We investigated (1) factors associated with stigma, discrimination, and violence, (2) the association of stigma, discrimination, and violence with mental health, (3) everyday experiences of stigmatization, discrimination, and violence. We chose a combination of a quantitative approach and qualitative content analysis to analyze data collected at three time points: in 2020, 2021 and 2022.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe pandemic due to COVID-19 brought new risks for depression of health care workers, which may have differently influenced men and women. We aimed to investigate (1) whether health care workers in Czechia experienced an increase in depression during the COVID-19 pandemic, (2) which factors contributed the most to this change, and (3) whether the magnitude of the associations differed by gender. We studied 2564 participants of the Czech arm of the international COVID-19 HEalth caRe wOrkErS (HEROES) Study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: The use of personal protective equipment (PPE) in prehospital emergency care has significantly increased since the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Several studies investigating the potential effects of PPE use by Emergency Medical Service providers on the quality of chest compressions during resuscitation have been inconclusive.
Study Objectives: This study aimed to determine whether the use of PPE affects the quality of chest compressions or influences select physiological biomarkers that are associated with stress.
Acta Chir Orthop Traumatol Cech
September 2022
The case report presents the case of a five-year-old boy who fell off a scooter and sustained a blow to the left temporal region of his head. During a CT examination in the district hospital he suddenly showed a deterioration in the level of consciousness. Subsequent treatment along with transport to a specialized department were aimed at preventing secondary pathological changes and maintaining pressure-volume homeostasis of the brain.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Non-technical skills (NTS) are important for the proper functioning of emergency medical ambulance crews but have hardly been researched in the conditions of clinical pre-hospital care. The primary objective of this study, therefore, is to describe the use of NTS in practice. The secondary objective is to compare if the performance of NTS varies according to the type of case.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe aimed to evaluate the prevalence and incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, and panic disorder (PD) among citizens in 11 countries during the Covid-19 pandemic. We explored risks and protective factors most associated with the development of these mental health disorders and their course at 68 days follow up. We acquired 9543 unique responses via an online survey that was disseminated in UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, India, Latvia, Poland, Romania, and Sweden.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Pain Symptom Manage
December 2021
Context: Emergency medical services (EMS) are frequently responding to calls involving patients in advanced stages of incurable diseases. Despite the competencies and potential of EMS in supporting patients and their families facing symptoms of advanced progressive illnesses, the role of EMS in providing palliative care remains unclear.
Objective: The following research question was formulated: What is the role of ambulance EMS, EMS dispatch centres, paramedics and emergency medical physicians in the provision of palliative care to terminally ill patients?
Methods: Following PRISMA-ScR guidelines, online bibliographic databases CINAHL Complete, MEDLINE Complete (EBSCO), PubMed and MEDLINE (Ovid) were searched from the initial year of database to September 2019.
National governments took action to delay the transmission of the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) by implementing different containment measures. We developed an online survey that included 44 different containment measures. We aimed to assess how effective citizens perceive these measures, which measures are perceived as violation of citizens' personal freedoms, which opinions and demographic factors have an effect on compliance with the measures, and what governments can do to most effectively improve citizens' compliance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Health care providers are paying more and more attention to clinical handovers. Previous studies have found that poor handovers resulted in adverse effects for patients. This study aims to determine the effectiveness of the standardized pre-notification process, from emergency medical services (EMS) to in-hospital care, with specific cognitive aid based on ATMIST.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The so called ABCDE approach (Airway-Breathing-Circulation-Disability-Exposure) is a golden standard of patient assessment. The efficacy of using cognitive aids (CA) in resuscitation and peri-arrest situations remains an important knowledge gap. This work aims to develop an ABCDE CA tool (CAT) and study its potential benefits in patient condition assessment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Prehospital and emergency medical services (EMS) providers are usually the first to respond to an individual's urgent health needs, sometimes in emotionally charged circumstances. Because violence toward EMS providers in the Czech Republic is often overlooked and under-reported, we do not have a complete understanding of the extent of such violence, nor do we have recommendations from EMS professional organizations on how to resolve this problem in prehospital emergency medicine.
Methods: We conducted this study to explore the process of violence against EMS providers, using the Strauss/Corbin systematic approach of grounded theory to create a paradigm model.
The increasing number of patients with anaphylactic reactions is a modern challenge for healthcare professionals in clinical practice and public health professionals. It remains difficult to determine the prevalence or incidence of anaphylaxis in the population due to the long absence of a consensus definition, the fact that analyses are performed on various population groups and the use of different data collection methodologies. In the United States, anaphylaxis mortality ranges from 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLithium is widely used in psychiatry to treat bipolar affective disorders since 1970 but little is known about the incidence, clinical course and associated factors of acute lithium intoxication. Moderate and severe cases of lithium intoxication are rare. This case reports a patient with acute lithium intoxication (serum level of 3.
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