Pediatrics & Therapeutics
Open Access
ISSN: 2161-0665
+44 1478 350008
ISSN: 2161-0665
+44 1478 350008
Abdullah Almutairi
King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for health sciences
Scientific Tracks Abstracts: Pediatr Ther
Introduction: Emergency medical service (EMS) is a crucial component of the health care system. Pediatric emergencies are infrequent in the prehospital setting which makes the EMS personnel assessment and skills difficult to maintain and may decrease the comfort in dealing with pediatrics. Assessing the level of comfort among EMS personnel toward pediatric patient care is important to enhance the quality of prehospital care. Method: This is a cross sectional study using a questionnaire-based survey. 5 points Likert-scale regarding the level of comfort presented as frequency, percentage, likert-scale mean, and standard deviation. A sum of all the answers of the five points Likert-scale questions is used to get a total score to compare between variables with the answer (very comfortable) = 5 and (very uncomfortable) = 1. Kruskal Wallis test is used to compare between Helicopter EMS (HEMS), ground EMS (GEMS) and hospital-based EMS (HBEMS). Results: The majority have shown a low level of comfort of 48% or less in all the questions. The lowest level of comfort reported in patient care was in newborn delivery with a likert scale mean of 2.8. Regarding skills, the lowest comfort reported in orotracheal intubation with a likert scale mean of 2.7. The majority (60%) were comfortable with using a bag-valve-mask in a pediatric patients with a likert scale mean of 3.7. Conclusion: EMS providers in Riyadh have reported limited training in pediatric patient care, infrequent pediatric patient exposure, and low level of comfort in pediatric patient care.
Abdullah Almutairi is an Optmetrist who graduated in 2012 and a Doctor who graduated in April, 2017 from King Saud bin Abdulaziz University. Currently, he is a Medical Intern at King Abdulaziz Medical City in Riyadh Saudi Arabia.