Pre-Hospital Emergency in Iran: A Systematic Review

CONTEXT Pre-hospital care plays a vital role in saving trauma patients. OBJECTIVES This study aims to review studies conducted on the pre-hospital emergency status in Iran. DATA SOURCES Data were sourced from Iranian electronic databases, including SID, IranMedex, IranDoc, Magiran, and non-Iranian electronic databases, such as Medline, Embase, Cochrane Library, Scopus, and Google Scholar. In addition, available data and statistics for the country were used. DATA SELECTION All Persian-language articles published in Iranian scientific journals and related English-language articles published in Iranian and non-Iranian journals indexed on valid sites for September 2005 - 2014 were systematically reviewed. DATA EXTRACTION To review the selected articles, a data extraction form developed by the researchers as per the study's objective was adopted. The articles were examined under two categories: structure and function of pre-hospital emergency. RESULTS A total of 19 articles were selected, including six descriptive studies (42%), four descriptive-analytical studies (21%), five review articles (16%), two qualitative studies (10.5%), and two interventional (experimental) studies (10.5%). In addition, of these, 14 articles (73.5%) had been published in the English language. The focus of these selected articles were experts (31.5%), bases of emergency medical services (26%), injured (16%), data reviews (16%), and employees (10.5%). A majority of the studies (68%) investigated pre-hospital emergency functions and 32% reviewed the pre-hospital emergency structure. CONCLUSIONS The number of studies conducted on pre-hospital emergency services in Iran is limited. To promote public health, consideration of prevention areas, processes to provide pre-hospital emergency services, policymaking, foresight, systemic view, comprehensive research programs and roadmaps, and assessments of research needs in pre-hospital emergency seem necessary.