The Emergency Call on Drowning

NCT ID: NCT06310486

Last Updated: 2025-06-04

Study Results

Results pending

The study team has not published outcome measurements, participant flow, or safety data for this trial yet. Check back later for updates.

Basic Information

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Recruitment Status

RECRUITING

Total Enrollment

1500 participants

Study Classification

OBSERVATIONAL

Study Start Date

2016-01-01

Study Completion Date

2025-12-31

Brief Summary

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This study aims to 1) describe patient-, setting-, and dispatcher-related characteristics in drowning-related emergency calls to the Emergency Medical Dispatch Centre (1-1-2 emergency phone) and 2) factors associated with 30-day survival. The investigators will separately analyse drowning-related out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) and drowning-related non-OHCA. If feasible, the investigators will qualitatively analyse the calls to identify and describe potential barriers for an optimal handling strategy.

Detailed Description

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Previous studies have explored emergency priority levels, emergency call categorisations, barriers to assessing an emergency call, and the effects on the outcome. However, this has never been done specifically for drowning patients. Drowning presents a rare and special circumstance that may be particularly complex for laypeople and medical dispatchers for several reasons. Despite this complexity and medical dispatchers' potential to optimize treatment and improve outcomes in drowning incidents, the characteristics of drowning-related emergency calls have never been explored.

This protocol presents a registry-based cohort study of drowning-related emergency medical calls to the EMDC (1-1-2 emergency phone) with 30-day follow-up.

Data from the national Danish Prehospital Drowning Data will be linked with audio files and electronic data from the EMDC database using the patient's unique civil registration numbers.

The investigators will construct two lists of variables: one list for OHCA and one for non-OHCA emergency calls. Data collection from the EMDC database will consist of three phases.

In phase 1, three independent reviewers will listen to 20 emergency calls on drowning (10 OHCA and 10 non-OHCA) to identify relevant variables from the calls (e.g., presence of key symptoms \[since an emergency call often does not contain information regarding the absence of symptoms\], communication barriers \[anything that comes in the way of receiving and understanding information\], pre-arrival instructions to callers etc.).

In phase 2, the same reviewers will listen to 20 other emergency calls (10 OHCA and 10 non-OHCA) and use the lists for data collection to determine the data availability and completeness. This may result in modifications to the lists of variables. The investigators will use the results as a basis for reviewer training and calculate inter-rater reliability.

Once the reviewers' performances are satisfying (defined as Fleiss kappa ≥0.8), the investigators will move to phase 3 and collect data for all the drowning calls. Emergency calls will be stratified as OHCA or non-OHCA calls.

Conditions

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Drowning Drowning; Anoxia Drowning, Near Drowning; Asphyxia Drowning and Nonfatal Submersion Drowning or Immersion of Unknown Intent Drowning and Submersion, Undetermined Intent Drowning and Submersion While in Bath-Tub Drowning and Submersion While in Natural Water Drowning and Submersion Due to Sailboat Sinking Drowning and Submersion Due to Fall Off Ship Drowning and Submersion While in Swimming-Pool

Study Design

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Observational Model Type

COHORT

Study Time Perspective

RETROSPECTIVE

Study Groups

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Fatal drowning

These patients experienced a drowning incident and died within 30 days after the incident because of their submersion injury.

Drowning-related OHCA

Intervention Type OTHER

These patients were involved in a drowning incident (submersion or immersion in liquid) and experienced out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), defined as being unconscious and not breathing normally at any time in the prehospital setting. Some of these patients may die as a consequence of the submersion injury (fatal drowning), while others may survive (non-fatal drowning).

Drowning-related non-OHCA

Intervention Type OTHER

These patients were involved in a drowning incident (submersion or immersion in liquid) but did not experience an OHCA. Some of these patients may die as a consequence of the submersion injury (fatal drowning), while others may survive (non-fatal drowning).

Non-fatal drowning

These patients experienced a drowning incident and survived until 30 days after the incident.

Drowning-related OHCA

Intervention Type OTHER

These patients were involved in a drowning incident (submersion or immersion in liquid) and experienced out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), defined as being unconscious and not breathing normally at any time in the prehospital setting. Some of these patients may die as a consequence of the submersion injury (fatal drowning), while others may survive (non-fatal drowning).

Drowning-related non-OHCA

Intervention Type OTHER

These patients were involved in a drowning incident (submersion or immersion in liquid) but did not experience an OHCA. Some of these patients may die as a consequence of the submersion injury (fatal drowning), while others may survive (non-fatal drowning).

Interventions

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Drowning-related OHCA

These patients were involved in a drowning incident (submersion or immersion in liquid) and experienced out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), defined as being unconscious and not breathing normally at any time in the prehospital setting. Some of these patients may die as a consequence of the submersion injury (fatal drowning), while others may survive (non-fatal drowning).

Intervention Type OTHER

Drowning-related non-OHCA

These patients were involved in a drowning incident (submersion or immersion in liquid) but did not experience an OHCA. Some of these patients may die as a consequence of the submersion injury (fatal drowning), while others may survive (non-fatal drowning).

Intervention Type OTHER

Eligibility Criteria

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Inclusion Criteria

* Patients at all ages registered in the Danish Prehospital Drowning Data are eligible.

Exclusion Criteria

* Obvious clinical signs of irreversible death (decapitation, decomposition, post-mortem lividity, post-mortem rigidity)
* A valid Do-Not-Attempt-Resuscitation (DNAR) order or other code status orders limiting life-sustaining therapies
* Missing or corrupted audio files
* Missing identification number
* Missing 30-day survival
Eligible Sex

ALL

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Sponsors

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Prehospital Center, Region Zealand

OTHER

Sponsor Role lead

Responsible Party

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Niklas Breindahl

Principal Investigator

Responsibility Role PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

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Helle Collatz Christensen, MD, PhD, Ass. Prof.

Role: STUDY_DIRECTOR

Prehospital Center, Region Zealand

Locations

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Prehospital Center Region Zealand

Næstved, , Denmark

Site Status RECRUITING

Countries

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Denmark

Central Contacts

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Niklas Breindahl, MD, PhD

Role: CONTACT

+4528566410

Facility Contacts

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Niklas Breindahl, MD, PhD

Role: primary

Helle Collatz Christensen, MD, PhD, Ass. Prof.

Role: backup

References

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Breindahl N, Wolthers SA, Jensen TW, Holgersen MG, Blomberg SNF, Steinmetz J, Christensen HC; Danish Cardiac Arrest Group. Danish Drowning Formula for identification of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest from drowning. Am J Emerg Med. 2023 Nov;73:55-62. doi: 10.1016/j.ajem.2023.08.024. Epub 2023 Aug 15.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 37619443 (View on PubMed)

Breindahl N, Wolthers SA, Moller TP, Blomberg SNF, Steinmetz J, Christensen HC; Danish Drowning Validation Group. Characteristics and critical care interventions in drowning patients treated by the Danish Air Ambulance from 2016 to 2021: a nationwide registry-based study with 30-day follow-up. Scand J Trauma Resusc Emerg Med. 2024 Mar 6;32(1):17. doi: 10.1186/s13049-024-01189-y.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 38448994 (View on PubMed)

Other Identifiers

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DROWN_CALL

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id

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