Background: Respiration management is an important and critical issue in prehospital transportation phase of multiple trauma patients. However, the quality of this important care has not been assessed in Iran Emergency Medical Services' (EMS).
Objectives: This study was conducted to investigate the quality of prehospital respiration management in patients with multiple trauma, referred to the Shahid Beheshti Trauma Center, Kashan, Iran.
Patients and methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in the first six months of 2013. All the 400 patients with multiple trauma, transferred by EMS to the Shahid Beheshti Medical Center, were recruited. The study instrument was a checklist, which was completed through observation. Descriptive statistics were presented.
Results: Out of all included individuals, 301 were males (75.2%) and 99 were females (24.8%). The most common mechanism of trauma was traffic accident (87.25%). Furthermore, 71.7% of the patients were injured in head and neck and chest areas. The quality of consciousness monitoring and airway management was desirable in 95% of the cases. However, the quality of monitoring patients' respiration was only desirable in 42% of the cases. Only 18.6% of the patients received oxygen therapy during prehospital transportation.
Conclusions: The quality of monitoring patients' respiration and oxygen therapy was undesirable in most patients with multiple trauma. Therefore, the EMS workers should be retrained to apply proper respiration management in patients with multiple trauma.
Keywords: Accident; Multiple Trauma; Prehospital Emergency Care; Quality of Health Care; Respiration.