At this particular event, recreational drug abuse necessitated on-site medical treatment in one out of 350 attendants and a hospital transfer in one out of 1,000. Ethanol remains the most frequently abused (legal) drug, yet classical illicit recreational drugs are also frequently (co-) ingested. The most worrying observation was high-risk poly-drug use, especially among MDMA users. Regarding NPS, the number of cases was low and the clinical presentations were rather mild. It should be stressed that these observations only apply to this particular event and cannot be generalized to other EDM events. Calle P , Sundahl N , Maudens K , Wille SMR , Van Sassenbroeck D , De Graeve K , Gogaert S , De Paepe P , Devriese D , Arno G , Blanckaert P . Medical emergencies related to ethanol and illicit drugs at an annual, nocturnal, indoor, electronic dance music event. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2018;33(1):71-76.
Objective:
To compare actual patient presentation rates from Belgium’s largest public open-air cultural festival with predictions provided by existing models and the Belgian Plan Risk Manifestations model.
Methods:
Retrospectively, actual patient presentation rates gathered from the Ghent Festivities (Belgium) during 2013–2019 were compared to predicted patient presentation rates by the Arbon, Hartman, and PRIMA models.
Results:
During 7 editions, 8673000 people visited the Ghent Festivities; 9146 sought medical assistance resulting in a mean patient presentation rate (PPR) of 1.05. The PRIMA model overestimated the number of patient encounters for each occasion. The other models had a high rate of underprediction. When comparing deviations in predictions between the PRIMA model to the other models, there is a significant difference in the mean deviation (Arbon: T = 0.000, P < 0.0001, r = −0.8701; Hartman: T = 0.000, P < 0.0001, r = −0.869).
Conclusion:
Despite the differences between the predictions of all 3 models, our results suggest that the PRIMA model is a valid tool to predict patient presentations to IEHS during public cultural MG. However, to substantiate the PRIMA model even further, more research is needed to further validate the model for a broad range of MG.
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