Influence of prehospital time in trauma patients’ outcome: a systematic review

Introduction: In recent decades, wounds are one of the leading causes of death, especially among young people under the age of 40, due to the rapid increase in motor vehicle accidents, but also to widespread wars between states, which have led to millions of injured or to deaths as a result of injuries. Aim: of this systematic review was to investigate the influence of prehospital time on trauma patients’ outcome. Method: The relevant Greek and international bibliography was searched in the Pubmed, Scopus, ScienceDirect, Cochrane and Google Scholar bibliographic databases. The key words used were: prehospital time, prehospital care, transport time, on-scene time, trauma patients’ outcome, outcome parameters, golden hour, factors contributing to the survival of trauma patients, road traffic injuries, road safety and a combination of these. Results: For this systematic review, 13 articles were finally selected. The results showed that the immediate, correct, specialized and comprehensive provision of first aid at the pre-hospital level contributes decisively to the holistic treatment of the injured patient and the stabilization before moving to a specialized and organized hospital wound center, ultimately limiting the mortality and fatality of the wounded. However, more specialized researches are required from the scientific community, to larger groups of the population, in order to draw more safe conclusions regarding the increase in the survival rate of seriously injured patients. Conclusions: Time is the most basic and determinant factor for the outcome of traumatic health, and in particular, pre-hospital intervention during the first hour of injury is important to significantly reduce the mortality of the injured.

Keywords: Prehospital time, wound care, golden time