TY - JOUR T1 - Abstracts from international emergency medicine journals JF - Emergency Medicine Journal JO - Emerg Med J SP - 731 LP - 732 DO - 10.1136/emermed-2020-210737 VL - 37 IS - 11 AU - EMJ Production Y1 - 2020/11/01 UR - http://emj.bmj.com/content/37/11/731.abstract N2 - EMJ has partnered with the journals of multiple international emergency medicine societies to share from each a highlighted research study, as selected by their editors. This edition will feature an abstract from each publication. The official journal of the African Federation for Emergency Medicine, the Emergency Medicine Association of Tanzania, the Emergency Medicine Society of South Africa, the Egyptian Society of Emergency Medicine, the Libyan Emergency Medicine Association, the Ethiopian Society of Emergency Medicine Professionals, the Sudanese Emergency Medicine Society, the Society of Emergency Medicine Practitioners of Nigeria and the Rwanda Emergency Care Association Telephonic description of sepsis among callers to an emergency dispatch centre in South AfricaStassen W, Larsson E, Wood C, Kurland L Introduction Sepsis is an acute, life-threatening condition caused by a dysregulated systemic response to infection. Early medical intervention such as antibiotics and fluid resuscitation can be life-saving. Diagnosis or suspicion of sepsis by an emergency call-taker could potentially improve patient outcome. Therefore, the aim was to determine the keywords used by callers to describe septic patients in South Africa when calling a national private emergency dispatch centre. Methods A retrospective review of prehospital patient records was completed to identify patients with sepsis in the prehospital environment. A mixed-methods design was employed in two-sequential phases. The first phase was qualitative. Thirty cases of sepsis were randomly selected, and the original call recording was extracted. These recordings were transcribed verbatim and subjected to content analysis to determine keywords of signs and symptoms telephonically. Once keywords were identified, an additional sample of sepsis cases that met inclusion … ER -