Evidence map›Paper›PMID 32152051›Full record

ArticleCMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne2020

Screening strategies to identify sepsis in the prehospital setting: a validation study.

Daniel J Lane, Hannah Wunsch, Refik Saskin, Sheldon Cheskes, Steve Lin, Laurie J Morrison, Damon C Scales

Open access · goldAbstract readComparative StudyValidation Study
In one paragraph

Article in CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
21citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
3.1field-weighted citation impact, top 8% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

21 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 36 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Screening tools for sepsis identification in paramedicine and other emergency contexts: a rapid systematic review.Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine · 2023
    Pooled it
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  6. Validation and comparison of triage-based screening strategies for sepsis.The American journal of emergency medicine · 2024
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  18. Prehospital fluid therapy in patients with suspected infection: a survey of ambulance personnel's practice.Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine · 2022
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.

Daniel J LaneInstitute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, Dalla Lana School of Public Health (Lane, Wunsch, Saskin, Lin, Scales), Interdepartmental Division of Critical Care (Wunsch, Scales), Division of Emergency Medicine, Department of Family and Community Medicine (Cheskes), and Division of Emergency Medicine, Department of Medicine (Lin, Morrison), University of Toronto; Rescu, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute (Lane, Cheskes, Lin, Morrison), St. Michael's Hospital; Department of Critical Care Medicine (Wunsch) and Sunnybrook Centre for Prehospital Medicine (Cheskes), Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Ont. djlane@ucalgary.ca.
Hannah WunschInstitute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, Dalla Lana School of Public Health (Lane, Wunsch, Saskin, Lin, Scales), Interdepartmental Division of Critical Care (Wunsch, Scales), Division of Emergency Medicine, Department of Family and Community Medicine (Cheskes), and Division of Emergency Medicine, Department of Medicine (Lin, Morrison), University of Toronto; Rescu, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute (Lane, Cheskes, Lin, Morrison), St. Michael's Hospital; Department of Critical Care Medicine (Wunsch) and Sunnybrook Centre for Prehospital Medicine (Cheskes), Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Ont.
Refik SaskinInstitute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, Dalla Lana School of Public Health (Lane, Wunsch, Saskin, Lin, Scales), Interdepartmental Division of Critical Care (Wunsch, Scales), Division of Emergency Medicine, Department of Family and Community Medicine (Cheskes), and Division of Emergency Medicine, Department of Medicine (Lin, Morrison), University of Toronto; Rescu, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute (Lane, Cheskes, Lin, Morrison), St. Michael's Hospital; Department of Critical Care Medicine (Wunsch) and Sunnybrook Centre for Prehospital Medicine (Cheskes), Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Ont.
Sheldon CheskesInstitute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, Dalla Lana School of Public Health (Lane, Wunsch, Saskin, Lin, Scales), Interdepartmental Division of Critical Care (Wunsch, Scales), Division of Emergency Medicine, Department of Family and Community Medicine (Cheskes), and Division of Emergency Medicine, Department of Medicine (Lin, Morrison), University of Toronto; Rescu, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute (Lane, Cheskes, Lin, Morrison), St. Michael's Hospital; Department of Critical Care Medicine (Wunsch) and Sunnybrook Centre for Prehospital Medicine (Cheskes), Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Ont.
Steve LinInstitute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, Dalla Lana School of Public Health (Lane, Wunsch, Saskin, Lin, Scales), Interdepartmental Division of Critical Care (Wunsch, Scales), Division of Emergency Medicine, Department of Family and Community Medicine (Cheskes), and Division of Emergency Medicine, Department of Medicine (Lin, Morrison), University of Toronto; Rescu, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute (Lane, Cheskes, Lin, Morrison), St. Michael's Hospital; Department of Critical Care Medicine (Wunsch) and Sunnybrook Centre for Prehospital Medicine (Cheskes), Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Ont.
Laurie J MorrisonInstitute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, Dalla Lana School of Public Health (Lane, Wunsch, Saskin, Lin, Scales), Interdepartmental Division of Critical Care (Wunsch, Scales), Division of Emergency Medicine, Department of Family and Community Medicine (Cheskes), and Division of Emergency Medicine, Department of Medicine (Lin, Morrison), University of Toronto; Rescu, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute (Lane, Cheskes, Lin, Morrison), St. Michael's Hospital; Department of Critical Care Medicine (Wunsch) and Sunnybrook Centre for Prehospital Medicine (Cheskes), Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Ont.
Damon C ScalesInstitute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, Dalla Lana School of Public Health (Lane, Wunsch, Saskin, Lin, Scales), Interdepartmental Division of Critical Care (Wunsch, Scales), Division of Emergency Medicine, Department of Family and Community Medicine (Cheskes), and Division of Emergency Medicine, Department of Medicine (Lin, Morrison), University of Toronto; Rescu, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute (Lane, Cheskes, Lin, Morrison), St. Michael's Hospital; Department of Critical Care Medicine (Wunsch) and Sunnybrook Centre for Prehospital Medicine (Cheskes), Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Ont.
St Michael's Hospital · GBUniversity of Toronto · CA

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundIn the prehospital setting, differentiating patients who have sepsis from those who have infection but no organ dysfunction is important to initiate sepsis treatments appropriately. We aimed to identify which published screening strategies for paramedics to use in identifying patients with sepsis provide the most certainty for prehospital diagnosis.

methodsWe identified published strategies for screening by paramedics through a literature search. We then conducted a validation study in Alberta, Canada, from April 2015 to March 2016. For adult patients (≥ 18 yr) who were transferred by ambulance, we linked records to an administrative database and then restricted the search to patients with infection diagnosed in the emergency department. For each patient, the classification from each strategy was determined and compared with the diagnosis recorded in the emergency department. For all strategies that generated numeric scores, we constructed diagnostic prediction models to estimate the probability of sepsis being diagnosed in the emergency department.

resultsWe identified 21 unique prehospital screening strategies, 14 of which had numeric scores. We linked a total of 131 745 eligible patients to hospital databases. No single strategy had both high sensitivity (overall range 0.02-0.85) and high specificity (overall range 0.38-0.99) for classifying sepsis. However, the Critical Illness Prediction (CIP) score, the National Early Warning Score (NEWS) and the Quick Sepsis-Related Organ Failure Assessment (qSOFA) score predicted a low to high probability of a sepsis diagnosis at different scores. The qSOFA identified patients with a 7% (lowest score) to 87% (highest score) probability of sepsis diagnosis.

interpretationThe CIP, NEWS and qSOFA scores are tools with good predictive ability for sepsis diagnosis in the prehospital setting. The qSOFA score is simple to calculate and may be useful to paramedics in screening patients with possible sepsis.

Indexed as

AgedAged, 80 and overDatabases, FactualEarly DiagnosisEmergency Medical ServicesFemaleHumansMaleMass ScreeningMedical Record LinkageMiddle AgedPredictive Value of TestsSepsis

Identifiers

PMID32152051
PMCPMC7062432
OpenAlexW3009261176

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.