Background: Traumatic injuries have become a substantial but neglected epidemic in low- and middle-income\ncountries (LMICs), but emergency rooms (ERs) in these countries are often staffed with healthcare providers who\nhave minimal emergency training and experience. The aim of this paper was to describe the specialized training,\navailable interventions, and the patient management strategies in the ERs in Albanian public hospitals.\nMethods: A cross-sectional descriptive study of 42 ERs in the Republic of Albania between September 5, 2014, and\nDecember 29, 2014 was performed. Assessment subcategories included the following: (1) specialized training and/\nor certifications possessed by healthcare providers, (2) interventions performed in the ER, and (3) patient\nmanagement strategies.\nResults: Across the 42 ERs surveyed, less than half (37.1ââ?¬â??42.5 %) of physicians and one third of nurses (7.1ââ?¬â??26.0 %)\nworking in the ERs received specialized trauma training. About half (47.9ââ?¬â??57.1 %) of the ER physicians and one fifth\nof the nurses (18.3ââ?¬â??22.9 %) possessed basic life support certification. This survey demonstrated some significant\ndifferences in the emergency medical care provided between primary, secondary, and tertiary hospitals across\nAlbania (the significance level was set at 0.05). Specifically, these differences involved spinal immobilization\n(p = 0.01), FAST scan (p = 0.04), splinting (p = 0.01), closed reduction of displaced fractures (p = 0.02), and nurses\nperforming cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) (p = 0.01). Between 50.0 and 71.4 % of the facilities cited a\ncombined lack of training and supplies as the reason for not offering interventions such as rapid sequence\ninduction, needle thoracotomy, chest tube insertion, and thrombolysis. Mass casualty triage was utilized among 39.\n1 % primary hospitals, 41.7 % of secondary, and 28.6 % of tertiary.\nConclusions: The emergency services in Albania are currently staffed with inadequately trained personnel, who lack\nthe equipment and protocols to meet the needs of the population
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