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Prehospital care
Issues around conducting prehospital research on out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: lessons from the TOPCAT study
  1. Richard M Lyon1,
  2. Gerry Egan2,
  3. Paul Gowens2,
  4. Peter Andrews3,
  5. Gareth Clegg1
  1. 1Emergency Department, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
  2. 2Scottish Ambulance Service, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
  3. 3Intensive Care Unit, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Richard M Lyon, Clinical Research Fellow in Emergency Medicine, Emergency Department, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, 51 Little France Crescent, Edinburgh EH16 4SA, UK; richardlyon{at}doctors.org.uk

Abstract

Outcome from OHCA is primarily determined by prehospital events and meaningful clinical OHCA research must include data recorded in this setting. There is little evidence on which to base the practice of prehospital resuscitation and research in this area presents huge challenges but is required if survival from OHCA is to improve. This short report aims to provide a practical guide to performing prehospital research on OHCA, based on lessons learned from the Temperature Post Cardiac Arrest (TOPCAT) research; an observational study into OHCA.

  • Emergency care systems
  • prehospital care
  • despatch
  • resuscitation
  • trauma
  • research

https://doi.org/10.1136/emj.2009.087395

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    Footnotes

    • Funding Chest, Heart and Stroke Scotland.

    • Competing interests None.

    • Ethics approval This study was conducted with the approval of the Scottish Research Ethics Committee.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

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