College of Nursing, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea.
College of Nursing, Research Institute of Nursing Science, Seoul National University, 28 Yeongeon-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul 110-460, Korea.
J Travel Med. 2017 Mar 1;24(2). doi: 10.1093/jtm/taw091.
Since the number of air travellers, including the elderly and passengers with an underlying disease, is increasing every year, the number of inflight emergency patients is expected to increase as well. We attempted to identify the incidence and types of reported inflight medical incidents and analyse the first aid performed by cabin crew members or medical volunteers in flights by an Asian airline. We also investigated the cases of inflight deaths and aircraft diversions.
We reviewed the cabin reports and medical records submitted by cabin crew members and inflight medical volunteers from 2009 to 2013.
We found that inflight medical incidents increased annually, with a total of 2818 cases reported. Fifteen cases of inflight deaths and 15 cases of aircraft diversions during this period were also reported. First aid was performed by the cabin crew alone in 52% of the cases and by medical volunteers in 47.8% of the cases. The most commonly reported causes for first aid performed by the cabin crew and medical volunteers were burns and syncope, respectively.
: Since burns were one of the common reasons that first aid was provided by the cabin crew, it may be necessary to include first aid treatments for burns in the annual re-qualification training programme. Furthermore, the assessment of unconsciousness and potentially critical respiratory symptoms is very important for cabin crew members because those conditions can lead to inflight deaths and aircraft diversion.
随着每年乘坐飞机出行的旅客数量不断增加，包括老年人和患有基础疾病的乘客，机上紧急病患的数量预计也将随之增加。我们试图确定亚洲某航空公司航班上报的机上医疗事件的发生率和类型，并分析机组人员或医疗志愿者实施的急救措施。我们还调查了机上死亡和航班改航的案例。
我们查阅了 2009 年至 2013 年机组人员和机上医疗志愿者提交的客舱报告和医疗记录。
我们发现机上医疗事件逐年增加，共报告了 2818 起案例。在此期间还报告了 15 起机上死亡和 15 起航班改航的案例。在这些案例中，有 52%的案例是由机组人员单独进行急救，47.8%的案例是由医疗志愿者进行急救。机组人员和医疗志愿者实施急救的最常见原因分别是烧伤和晕厥。
由于烧伤是机组人员提供急救的常见原因之一，因此可能需要将烧伤急救治疗纳入年度再认证培训计划中。此外，对无意识和潜在危急呼吸症状的评估对于机组人员来说非常重要，因为这些情况可能导致机上死亡和航班改航。
