Prehospital Recognition of Sepsis by Ambulance Clinicians (PRoSAiC)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Development of a prehospital sepsis screening tool for use by ambulance clinicians.
IRAS ID
152449
Contact name
Michael Smyth
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Warwick University
Research summary
Sepsis is a life-threatening infection that has overwhelmed the body’s defences; unfortunately it is very common. Patients with severe sepsis have a 30-50% chance of dying - 36000 people die from sepsis in the UK each year. Research shows that early diagnosis of sepsis followed by rapid treatment can significantly reduce the chance of dying; however the same research also tells us that the chance of dying increases by around 7% per hour if patients are not treated.
Ambulance clinicians, such as paramedics, are often the first health care professionals that patients with sepsis encounter when they seek help; consequently ambulance clinicians are exceptionally well placed to aid the early identification of sepsis. The objective of this research is to develop set of criteria (called a tool) that ambulance clinicians will be able to use to assist them to make an early sepsis diagnosis.
If we succeed in developing such a tool, ambulance clinicians will be able to identify a larger proportion of septic patients, before they arrive at hospital, and consequently those patients will receive antibiotic therapy sooner after arriving at hospital. By reducing the time interval from when the patient arrives at hospital and receives antibiotic therapy, we expect to see an improvement in survival from this deadly disease.
REC name
South Central - Oxford C Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/SC/0163
Date of REC Opinion
2 Apr 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion