The barriers and facilitators to the telephonic application of the FAST assessment for stroke in a private emergency dispatch centre in South Africa

The barriers and facilitators to initiation of telephone-assisted bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation for patients experiencing out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in a private emergency dispatch centre in South Africa

“… 49 Lack of empathy was a major barrier in tCPR uptake in our study, and resulted in frustration and heightened emotion – exacerbating the barriers of poor communication and emotionality. Lack of empathy has also been found to influence the ability to apply screening for stroke and other prioritisation tools in South African emergency call centres, 36 highlighting this as a key area for intervention. In South Africa, there is currently no standardised training programmes for emergency call centre staff.…”

“…Credibility was ensured by using established methods to answer the research question, 36 through random sampling, double coding, researcher triangulation and frequent debriefing sessions. 35 Two members of the research team (ET and WS) have formal training in qualitative research, HS has experience in qualitative research, and SC was given ad hoc training for the project.…”

Methods for Detecting Early Symptoms of Stroke: A Literature Review

“…15 Because stroke is a time-sensitive condition and must be treated quickly, methods of increasing knowledge are needed, namely by holding training on emergency medical services (EMS), which plays a vital role in early recognition of stroke. However, the implementation of FAST has several obstacles according to research by Ethan Mackay, 2021 showing that the FAST assessment was successfully implemented in 15/20 (75%) calls. Eight barriers under three themes (practical barriers, emotionality, and knowledge and understanding) and three facilitators under one theme (clear communication) were identified.…”

“…These lessons can likely be applied to other acuity and phone recognition algorithms. 16 Among community-dwelling elderly people in Shanghai, Stroke 120 appears to be more suitable than FAST in the promotion of stroke knowledge. Meanwhile, for the ability to remember the meaning of the stroke awareness tool, the number of respondents who could remember all the meanings of Stroke 120 increased from 0 in the pre-education survey to 44 (21.5%) in the post-education survey (P<0.001) for respondents living in the Stroke community 120.…”