Table 2.
Categorisation by symptom discriminator impression.
| A problem elsewhere1 | Spinal pain2 | Deferred diagnosis3 | |||
| Acute abdomen | 535 (16.1%) | Spinal cord compression | 1151 (34.7%) | Full primary care assessment and prescribing capability | 397 (12.0%) |
| Ischaemia, non-trauma | 296 (8.9%) | Spinal injury4 | 1 (< 0.1%) | Full ED assessment and management capability | 74 (2.2%) |
| Aortic aneurysm, rupture/dissection | 231 (7.0%) | Ambulance dispatch | 2 (< 0.1%) | ||
| Ectopic pregnancy | 213 (6.4%) | Not recorded | 103 (3.1%) | ||
| Septicaemia | 117 (3.5%) | ||||
| Deep vein thrombosis | 144 (3.4%) | ||||
| Gastrointestinal bleed | 48 (1.4%) | ||||
| Acute coronary syndrome | 1 (< 0.1%) | ||||
| Toxic ingestion | 2 (< 0.1%) | ||||
| 1587 (47.9%) | 1152 (34.8%) | 576 (17.4%) | |||
The symptom discriminator impression is selected from a large pre-determined list contained within the electronic patient record system. The table shows the 15 symptom discriminator impressions that ambulance clinicians used to further categorise calls received that had been listed as lower back pain following a face-to-face assessment.
1Categorised as patients where the lower back pain was caused by a problem occurring somewhere other than the spine. 2Categorised as patients where the lower back pain was caused by a spinal pathology; the number of symptom discriminator impressions available is very limited and it is not possible to tell how clinicians made their diagnosis. 3Discriminator impressions that did not refer to a condition and includes patients where clinicians were unable to make a diagnosis. 4Only one call initially categorised as lower back pain was subsequently categorised by the attending clinician as spinal injury; other patients with spinal injury will have called the ambulance service but these will have been categorised differently.
ED = emergency department.