Abstract
To the Editor:
With increasing participation in winter sports, there has been increased exposure to avalanche danger. Thus, the baseline knowledge of the Avalanche Victim Resuscitation Checklist (AVReCh) proposed by the International Commission for Mountain Emergency Medicine and its spread among health care providers and mountain rescue personnel is fundamental. For that reason, we recently introduced in our continuing medical education course “La gestione del trauma in DEA (Dipartimento di Emergenza ed Accettazione)” (A.O.S. Croce e Carle Cuneo) specific training on this topic, and we read the brief report by Strapazzon et al 1 with interest.
As Strapazzon et al report, participants included both novice and expert medical professionals, such as physicians, nurses, and mountain rescue personnel, and laypersons (nonmedical/nonrescue persons). Of a total of 193 surveys analyzed, only 34% of the participants possessed knowledge of the AVReCh before the lecture proposed. This result is very interesting but probably not representative of the general population. Unfortunately, this result could be affected by a selection bias because the 8 mountain medicine courses were organized by either the Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico (the Italian Mountain Rescue Society) or Società Italiana Medicina di Montagna (the Italian Society of Mountain Medicine). As such, the participants are all mountain lovers, so if the authors found such a lack of knowledge about the AVReCh among study participants we might expect a lower percentage in a “statistically normal” group.
It could be interesting to use the same survey to determine the level of knowledge about the AVReCh among emergency medicine physicians and nurses who work in areas with potential involvement in a mountain rescue operation. Likewise, those healthcare providers in emergency departments responsible for the downstream care of a patient evacuated from mountain areas in the North of Italy could be surveyed regarding this matter.