Scand J Trauma Resusc Emerg Med: Is pre-hospital stroke care related to socioeconomic status?

Recent studies have shown socio-economic differences between stroke outcomesHere, we investigate whether pre-hospital stroke care is different from socioeconomic status (SES)included stroke and TIA patients at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, Sweden, between 1 November 2014 and 31 July 2016Data for pre-hospital care come from the local stroke registerSocio-economic status is classified according to the average income and level of education in each patient's communityresults show that the lowest sepsis patient has a median system delay of 3 h 47 min (95% confidence interval (CI)3 h 30 min-4 h 05 min) and the lowest system delay in SES from calling the Emergency Medical Communications Center (EMCC) to starting a brain computed tomography in admission The patient was 3 h 17 min (95% CI 3 h 00 min to 3 h 37 min) and the highest patient was 3 h 17 min (95% CI 3 h 00 min to 3 h 37 min) (p 0.05)Patients with lower SES were less likely to receive the highest priority in ambulances (P 0.05) and patients with higher pre-hospital recognition rates for stroke/TIA were less likely to be given the highest priority in ambulances (P 0.05)No inequality was found in terms of EMCC priority and the probability of ambulance transportin general, this study found that there are socio-economic inequalities in pre-hospital stroke care, which may affect the efficacy of acute stroke treatmentThe ambulance nurse's ability to identify stroke/TIA may partly explain the observed outcome differences