Research skills and the data spreadsheet: A research primer for low- and middle-income countries.

The specialty of Emergency Medicine continues to expand and mature worldwide. As a relatively new specialty, the body of research that underpins patient management in the emergency department (ED) setting needs to be expanded for optimum patient care. Research in the ED, however, is complicated by a number of issues including limited time and resources, urgency for some therapeutic investigations and interventions, and difficulties in obtaining truly informed patient consent.

Emergency healthcare needs in the Lavender Hill suburb of Cape Town, South Africa: a cross-sectional, community-based household survey.

Objective: Emergency care is a key component of healthcare systems, but little is known about its real impact on communities. This study evaluated access, utilisation and barriers to healthcare, and specifically emergency care, in the low socioeconomic Cape Town suburb of Lavender Hill.

Design: A cross-sectional, community-based household survey.

Global emergency care clinical practice guidelines: A landscape analysis.

Introduction: An adaptive guideline development method, as opposed to a guideline development, is dependent on access to existing high-quality up-to-date clinical practice guidelines (CPGs). We described the characteristics and quality of CPGs relevant to prehospital care worldwide, in order to strengthen guideline development in low-resource settings for emergency care.

Methods: We conducted a descriptive study of a database of international CPGs relevant to emergency care produced by the African Federation for Emergency Medicine (AFEM) CPG project in 2016.

Caregivers' Experiences of Pathways to Care for Seriously Ill Children in Cape Town, South Africa: A Qualitative Investigation.

Purpose: Understanding caregivers' experiences of care can identify barriers to timely and good quality care, and support the improvement of services. We aimed to explore caregivers' experiences and perceptions of pathways to care, from first access through various levels of health service, for seriously ill and injured children in Cape Town, South Africa, in order to identify areas for improvement.

Methods: Semi-structured, qualitative interviews were conducted with primary caregivers of children who were admitted to paediatric intensive care or died in the health system prior to intensive care admission.

Strategies Used by Prehospital Providers to Overcome Language Barriers.

Objective: Language barriers are commonly encountered in the prehospital setting but there is a paucity of research on how prehospital providers address language discordance. We sought to identify the communication strategies, and the limitations of those strategies, used by emergency medical services (EMS) providers when confronted with language barriers in a variety of linguistic and cultural contexts.

Methods: EMS providers were queried regarding communication strategies to overcome language barriers as part of an international, multi-site, sequential explanatory, qualitative-predominant, mixed methods study of prehospital language barriers.

Validation of weight estimation by age and length based methods in the Western Cape, South Africa population.

Objective: To evaluate four paediatric weight estimation methods (APLS, Luscombe and Owens, Best Guess and Broselow tape) in order to determine which are accurate for weight estimation in South African children.

Method: From a database of 2832 children aged 1-10 years seen at Red Cross Hospital in Cape Town, measured weight was compared to estimated weights from all four methods.

Results: APLS formula and the Broselow Tape showed the best correlation with measured weight.

Emergency medicine in the developing world: a Delphi study.

Objectives: Emergency medicine (EM) as a specialty has developed rapidly in the western world, but remains largely immature in developing nations. There is an urgent need for emergency services, but no clear guidelines are available on the priorities for establishing EM in the developing world. This study seeks to establish consensus on key areas of EM development in developing world settings, with respect to scope of EM, staffing needs, training requirements, and research priorities.