Pharmacotherapy administered during the intervention of emergency medical teams to people with mental disorders – a two-year observation

Objectives.
Assessment of the frequency of use and the type of drugs administered during the intervention of the Medical Rescue Teams to patients with mental disorders.

Material and methods.
The study includes a retrospective analysis of Medical Rescue Team interventions. The material consists of Dispatch Orders and Emergency Medical Services Forms. Two periods were observed: period I (1 March 2019 – 29 February 2020) and period II (1 March 2020 – 28 February 2021). The database was prepared in Microsoft Excel using MS Office 2016 for Windows 10. The variables were described using descriptive statistics. The following measures were calculated for interval variables: mean (M) and standard deviation (SD). For categorical variables, the following measures were calculated: number (n) and frequency (%).

Results.
During the two-year period of analysis, 14,972 dispatch orders (I – 7,531; II – 7,441) were carried out by the Medical Rescue Teams in the examined operational area. The partial target of the analysis (patient with mental disorders) was met in 862 incidents (5.75% of the total). In 92 Medical Rescue Team interventions, pharmacological agents were administered to patients with mental disorders. This was a total of 100 drugs, most often hydroxyzine (41%), diazepam (33%), captopril (6%), and multi-electrolyte fluid MEF500 (6%). Patients were more often men (53.26%).

Conclusions.
Most Medical Rescue Team interventions requiring the use of drugs are associated with alcohol abuse and a strong stress reaction. The decision to administer drugs at the pre-hospital stage must be well thought through due to interactions with drugs taken regularly. The COVID-19 pandemic did not significantly affect the frequency of drug administration during the interventions of Medical Rescue Teams.