German Clinical Trials Register

Acronym/abbreviation of the study

DICTUM-Rescue

URL of the study

http://www.dictum-rescue.de

Brief summary in lay language

Being able to communicate one’s needs to medical personnel is essential for any medical treatment. Providing medical is therefore especially challenging, when patients who speak little or no German are confronted with only German-speaking medical staff, especially when no eligible interpreters are available. With 'DICTUM Rescue' we would like to provide a smartphone-based application which helps paramedical staff to overcome language barriers with their non-German speaking patients. We cooperate with several Ambulance Services, which provide preclinical emergency care in Eastern Lower Saxony. The study is carried out by the Department of General Practice of the University Medical Center Göttingen together with the Malteser in Lower Saxony and the technical development partner aidminutes GmbH. Network partners are the District of Helmstedt and the City of Brunswig as well as the Interdisciplinary Emergency Department of the University Medical Center Göttingen. The project in rural areas is funded by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture on the basis of a resolution of the German Parliament (Bundestag). The executing agency of the project is the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE) as part of a Federal Programme for Rural Development. Testing and further development in the urban areas is financed by the Lower Saxony Ministry for Social Affairs, Health and Equal Opportunities with funds from the European Social Fund (ESF) in line with the directive on grants to promote measures within the framework of the "Social Innovation" programme. The latter project is co-financed by Malteser Hilfsdienst gGmbH, aidminutes GmbH and the Department of General Practice, University Medical Center Göttingen.

Brief summary in scientific language

Being able to communicate about acute symptoms and pre-existing conditions is the basis of any medical treatment. Situations of mutual incomprehension are therefore a great challenge for patients who do speak hardly or no German and the medical staff who treat them, especially when no suitable interpreters are available. In the project 'DICTUM Rescue' we would like to improve these situations by using a newly developed smartphone-based communication assistance tool for preclinical emergency care. This tool is intended to support the paramedical staff in communicating with their non-German-speaking patients and thus overcome language barriers. The centrepiece of the application will be module for rapid anamnesis, which helps to collect necessary information. Questions and possible answers of the intervention are also presented image-, video- and audiobased, which includes also patients who are not familiar with writing. An action research approach is used to take the complex situations of prehospital emergency care as well as the needs of paramedical staff into account. The latter are involved in the whole development process. After establishing a stable useful version, the intervention is used and evaluated within a clinical study. The clinical study is designed as an open interventional, non-randomized study with two control groups and has a pilot character. The primary outcome is the improvement of communication in situations with language barriers. Secondary outcome is the improvement of information collection from patients with language barriers in emergency situations (number and quality of information). Exploratively, demands for supporting emergency physicians, on-scene intervals, presence of lay-interpreters, usage of the interventions with event sourcing are also observed. By recording clinical parameters, the analysis can be carried out taking into account the severity of the health restrictions. All data is collected anonymously. Patient recruitment takes place in two phases: In the first phase, patients of control group I (non-German-speaking patients who do not use the communication aid) and control group II (German-speaking patients who do not use the communication aid) are recruited. In the following second study phase the communication aid is usable, intervention patients and control group II patients are recruited.