Abstract

Background: Maintaining effective clinical handover between prehospital services and emergency departments is crucial to recognize critical cases, guiding proper management, and determining final outcomes.

Methods: This is a single-center cross-sectional study that was conducted between October 15, 2021, and July 30, 2022, in a tertiary care center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A novel handover tool (SRCA checklist) was developed, and eight emergency medicine consultants checked its content validity. It contains 4 domains and 12 items and is based on previously validated tools after an extensive literature review and experts’ opinions. The primary outcome of this study was to validate the newly developed tool aimed at assessing the quality of handover skills between prehospital medical care providers and emergency departments. The tool's reliability was examined using Cronbach's alpha method, while factor analysis with varimax rotation was used to examine the construct validity.

Results: 147 handovers were captured in this study. Almost 50% of the observed handovers adhered to 7 out of 12 checklist criteria for assessing the handover quality. The chief complaint and associated symptoms were reported in 94.56% (n=139) of cases, and verbalizing of the Airway–Breathing–Circulation–Disability–Exposure (ABCDE) was seen in 75% (n=111) of cases.

Key words: Clinical handover, Prehospital service .Emergency departments, Handover tool Quality of handover skills.