Article Text
Abstract
Background Prehospital critical care is a rapidly evolving field. There is a paucity of evidence relating to its practice, with limited progress in answering those research questions identified over a decade ago. It is vital that evidence gaps are identified and addressed. This study aimed to define the current research priorities in UK prehospital critical care.
Methods This modified national Delphi study was coordinated by the Pre-HOspital Trainee Operated research Network and conducted in four rounds between October 2021 and April 2022. Rounds 1 and 2 were conducted online with clinicians involved in prehospital critical care delivery and non-clinical prehospital researchers. Rounds 3 and 4 were completed online by a subject matter expert (SME) panel.
Results In round 1, 78 participants submitted 394 research questions relating to prehospital critical care delivery in the UK. These were refined and categorised into 192 questions, which were scored for importance in round 2. Fifty questions were discussed and scored by the SME panel in round 3. Round 4 created a ranked top 20 list. The top research priority was ‘Which cardiac arrest patients should critical care teams be dispatched to; how do we identify these patients during the emergency call?’. Other priorities included dispatch optimisation, out-of-hospital medical cardiac arrest management, optimising resuscitation in haemorrhagic shock, improving traumatic brain injury outcomes and optimising management of traumatic cardiac arrest.
Conclusions This modified Delphi study identified 20 research priorities where efforts should be concentrated to develop collaborative prehospital critical care research within the UK over the next 5 years.
- pre-hospital care
- advanced practitioner
- doctors in PHC
Data availability statement
All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information. Most data relevant to the study are either included in the article or uploaded as a supplementary file. Other data if required are available on reasonable request.
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Data availability statement
All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information. Most data relevant to the study are either included in the article or uploaded as a supplementary file. Other data if required are available on reasonable request.
Supplementary materials
Supplementary Data
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Footnotes
Handling editor Jason E Smith
Twitter @LisaRamage
Collaborators Subject Matter Experts: Steve Bell, Flora Bird, Simon Carley, Louisa Chan, David Clutton, Stephanie Cowan, Matthew Creed, David Dungay, Sarah Folley, Caroline Leech, Amy Hughes, Nigel Lang, Rob Major, Roderick MacKenzie, Zane Perkins, Laurie Phillipson, James Plumb, David Rawlinson, Matthew Taylor, Glyn Thomas, Harriet Tucker, James Raitt, Rishi Rallan, Andy Smith, Simon Walsh.
Contributors LR: Responsible for overall study content and is the guarantor. Involved in protocol drafting, ethics applications, survey design, study rollout, result analysis, chairing SME meeting, manuscript drafting, manuscript approval. SMcL: involved in protocol drafting, ethics applications, survey design, study rollout, result analysis, chairing SME meeting, manuscript drafting, manuscript approval. KW: involved in study rollout, analysis of results, manuscript approval.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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