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Knowledge and Attitudes of the Out-Of-Hospital Emergency Care Consumers in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2012

Amado Alejandro Báez ,
Ediza Giraldez ,
Peter L. Lane ,
Charles Pozner ,
Juan Rodriguez  and
Selwyn Rogers
Amado Alejandro Báez*
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA Emergency Medicine, Hospital General Plaza de la Salud, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Ediza Giraldez
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Peter L. Lane
Affiliation:
Deceased
Charles Pozner
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Juan Rodriguez
Affiliation:
Dominican Republic's Secretariat of Public Health, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Selwyn Rogers
Affiliation:
Department of Surgery, Brigham and Women's Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
*
Department of Emergency Medicine Brigham and Women's Hospital/Harvard Medical School 75 Francis Street, Boston, MA 02115 USA E-mail: aabaez@partners.org
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Abstract

Introduction:

Prehospital emergency services are a vital public service, and consumer access to the system is an important factor in their use. The Dominican Republic recently experienced “the epidemiological transition” leading to increased morbidity and mortality secondary to traumatic and cardiac conditions—thus, increasing the need for prompt and adequate delivery of emergency medical care.

Methods:

A survey was administered to 90 subjects from diverse backgrounds, all living in Santo Domingo. Survey items included questions on emergency medical services (EMS) systems knowledge (i.e., access numbers), confidence in the system, first-aid education and prior experience with the EMS system. Chi-square was used to measure statistical significance for categorical variables and Student's t-test for continuous variables (JMP 2.0 software was used for statistical processing).

Results:

A total of 90 subjects were surveyed. The average age of respondents was 36 ± 12 years SD. More than one-fifth (22.2%) of respondents did not know the established universal emergency number (9-1-1), and 37.8% responded that they would access a different telephone number in case of a medical emergency.

Conclusions:

Important deficiencies and access-to-care concerns were interpreted from the results. An adequate understanding of the current state of prehospital care could lead to creation of policies by system administrators to further improve the delivery of emergency medical care. This study will assist system administrators in future design and policy issues.

Keywords

Dominican Republicemergency medical servicesprehospital care
Type
Brief Report
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , August 2008 , pp. 373 - 376
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 2008

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