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Does Self-reporting Facilitate History Taking in Food Poisoning Mass-casualty Incidents?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2014

Ya-I Hsu  and
Ying C. Huang
Ya-I Hsu
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, Chiayi Christian Hospital, Chiayi City, Taiwan
Ying C. Huang*
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, Chiayi Christian Hospital, Chiayi City, Taiwan Department of Emergency Medicine, Medical Center & School of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
*
Correspondence: Ying C. Huang, MD, MS Department of Emergency Medicine Chiayi Christian Hospital 539 Chuan-Hsiau Road Chiayi City 60002, Taiwan E-mail Galaxy.bear@msa.hinet.net
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Abstract

Introduction

Medical history is an important contributor to diagnosis and patient management. In mass-casualty incidents (MCIs), health care providers are often overwhelmed by large numbers of casualties. An efficient, reliable, and affordable method of information collection is essential for effective health care response.

Hypothesis/Problem

In some MCIs, self-reporting of symptoms can decrease the time required for history taking, without sacrificing the completeness of triage information.

Methods

Two resident doctors and a number of seventh graders who had previous experience of abdominal discomfort were invited to join this study. A questionnaire was developed to collect information on common symptoms in food poisoning. Each question was scored, and enrolled students were randomly divided into two groups. The experimental group students answered the questionnaire first and then were interviewed to complete the medical history. The control group students were interviewed in the traditional way to collect medical history. Time of all interviews was measured and recorded. The time needed to complete the history taking and completeness of obtained information were compared with students’ t tests, or Mann-Whitney U tests, based on the normality of data. Comprehensibility of each question, scored by enrolled students, was reported by descriptive statistics.

Results

There were 41 students enrolled: 22 in the experimental group and 19 in the control group. Time to complete history taking in the experimental group (163.0 seconds, SD=52.3) was shorter than that in the control group (198.7 seconds, SD=40.9) (P=.010). There was no difference in the completeness of history obtained between the experimental group and the control group (94.8%, SD=5.0 vs 94.2%, SD=6.1; P=.747). Between the two doctors, no significant difference was found in the time required for history taking (185.2 seconds, SD=42.2 vs 173.1 seconds, SD=58.6; P=.449), or the completeness of information (94.1%, SD=5.9 vs 95.0%, SD=5.0; P=.601). Most of the questions were scored “good” in comprehensibility.

Conclusion

Self-reporting of symptoms can shorten the time of history taking during a food poisoning mass-casualty event without sacrificing the completeness of information.

HsuY, HuangYC. Does Self-reporting Facilitate History Taking in Food Poisoning Mass-casualty Incidents?Prehosp Disaster Med. 2014;29(4):1-4.

Keywords

mass-casualty incidentmedical history takingself-reporting
Type
Brief Report
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , August 2014 , pp. 417 - 420
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 2014 

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