Cardiac arrest & resuscitation
Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Use of Restraints and Sedation for Patients With Behavioral Health Emergencies
Main findingResult — go to the resultAdjusted odds ratio 1.17 95% CI 1.14–1.21Authors' conclusion
This nationwide retrospective cohort study of EMS encounters for patients with BHEs found differences in the use of prehospital restraint and/or sedation by patient race and ethnicity and an agency-level association with variation in restraint and/or sedation use.
Study context
- Population
- EMS encounters for patients aged 16 to 90 years with behavioral health emergencies (BHEs), US agencies in the 2021 ESO Data Collaborative dataset, January 1 to December 31, 2021
- Participants
- 661,307 encounters
- Exposure
- Patient race and ethnicity categories vs non-Hispanic White
- Outcome
- Any physical restraint and/or chemical sedation (any antipsychotic, benzodiazepine, or ketamine)
Methodological detailsnationwide, mixed-effects logistic regression accounting for clustering by EMS agency
- Nationwide
- Mixed-effects logistic regression accounting for clustering by EMS agency
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
Adjusted odds ratio
1.17
95% CI 1.14–1.21
By group
Non-Hispanic Black vs Non-Hispanic White
aOR 1.17 (95% CI 1.14–1.21)
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
| Outcome | aOR (95% CI) | |
|---|---|---|
| Physical restraintNon-Hispanic Black vs Non-Hispanic White | 1.22 (1.18–1.26) | |
| 0.512Adjusted odds ratio (log scale) |
Physical restraint
- Non-Hispanic Black patients had significantly greater odds of being restrained or sedated across all categories
Agency-level variation in restraint or sedation use
- Intraclass correlation coefficient
- 0.16 [95% CI, 0.14-0.17]
Original publication
Racial and Ethnic Disparities in EMS Use of Restraints and Sedation for Patients With Behavioral Health Emergencies. JAMA Netw Open. Published 3 March 2025. doi:10.
Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →