ArticleBMJ open2026
Help-seeking and barriers to emergency care during out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in public housing areas: a qualitative study.
Article in BMJ open, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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.
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.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionUnderstanding whether socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds influence help-seeking and communication with emergency medical services (EMS) is essential to mitigate disparities.
objectiveWe explored how public housing residents seek help and communicate with EMS, focusing on barriers and enablers to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) recognition and swift EMS responses.
designExplorative qualitative analysis of audio recordings of emergency service calls regarding non-EMS witnessed OHCAs. Audio recordings were screened and selected to ensure call variety-then transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis inspired by the concepts of social wrongs and social orders. We also analysed the dispatch protocol, a tool for managing emergency service calls.
settingFour public housing areas with >50% ethnic minority residents in Copenhagen, Denmark.
participantsNon-EMS witnessed OHCAs from 2017 to 2022.
resultsWe included 17 calls regarding 13 OHCAs and defined two themes. The effective call aligned with the dispatch protocol, leading to swift OHCA recognition and dispatcher-assisted cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). In contrast, the challenging call, which did not match the framework of the dispatch protocol, entailed one or more of the following characteristics, leading to delayed or missed OHCA recognition: (1) multiple people involved (multiple callers, third-party caller or bystanders communicating with caller), (2) language barriers, (3) emotionally unstable callers and (4) lack of emergency medical competencies. Across themes, witnesses contacted someone in their network instead of calling emergency services immediately. This was a barrier to OHCA recognition in the challenging calls, which some dispatchers managed using calm intonation and simple inquiries.
conclusionsWe identified two themes concerning communication in emergency service calls from public housing areas: the effective call and the challenging call, resulting in swift or delayed/missed OHCA recognition, respectively. The dispatch protocol enabled swift recognition in the effective calls but was a barrier in the challenging calls. Across themes, witnesses used network-based help-seeking before calling emergency services, delaying EMS responses and dispatcher-assisted CPR.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.