Public health perspective on quality of emergency medical services in Riyadh Province of Saudi Arabia

This thesis evaluated the quality of emergency medical services in the Riyadh province of Saudi Arabia to improve public health. It considered the extent of demand and acceptability of services by patients, the choice for medical aid and transportation, and the amount of time spent by the dispatched crews in all consecutive intervals of missions. It found that there are 22.1 ambulance missions dispatched per 1000 urban inhabitants, in comparison to 11.1 missions per 1000 inhabitants in rural areas. In addition, it found that the median response time for highly urgent trauma cases was 20.22 minutes in rural compared to 15.23 minutes in urban areas. Furthermore, the median on-scene time after the crews arrived at the scene was 22 minutes for woman and 18 minutes for men. Lastly, the thesis found that 34.4% of emergency medical services missions were ended by non-conveyance due to patients-initiated refusal, 8.6% ended due to emergency crew-initiated refusal. This thesis has several implications for future improvement in community medicine practice, health policy reforms, reducing knowledge gaps, and conducting further related research aiming towards efficient emergency services.