Impact of bilingual face, arm, speech, time (FAST) public awareness campaigns on emergency medical services (EMS) activation in a large Canadian metropolitan area.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Face, arm, speech, time (FAST) public awareness campaigns improve stroke recognition in the general population. Whether this translates into improved emergency medical services (EMS) activation remains unclear. We assessed the association of five consecutive FAST campaigns with EMS calls for suspected strokes in a large urban area of Quebec, Canada.

METHODS

We conducted an observational study to assess data collected between June 2015 and December 2019 by the public EMS agency covering the cities of Laval and Montreal (Quebec, Canada). Five FAST campaigns were held over this period (mean duration: 9 weeks). We compared daily EMS calls before and after all FAST campaigns (2015 vs 2019) with t tests and Mann-Whitney U tests. We used single-group, univariate interrupted time series to measure changes in daily EMS calls for suspected strokes following each FAST campaign (stroke categories: any, symptom onset < 5 h, Cincinnati Prehospital Stroke Scale [CPSS] 3/3). Calls for headache served as negative control.

RESULTS

After five FAST campaigns, mean daily EMS calls increased by 28% (p < 0.001) for any suspected stroke and by 61% (p < 0.001) for stroke with symptom onset < 5 h, compared to 10.1% for headache (p = 0.012). Significant increases in daily EMS calls were observed after three campaigns (highest OR = 1.26; 95% CI 1.11, 1.43; p < 0.001). There were no significant changes in calls after individual campaigns for suspected stroke with symptom onset < 5 h, or suspected stroke with CPSS 3/3.

CONCLUSIONS

We observed an inconsistent impact of individual FAST campaigns on EMS calls for any suspected stroke, and did not observe significant EMS call changes after individual campaigns for acute (< 5 h) and severe (CPSS 3/3) strokes. These results may help stakeholders identify potential benefits and limitations of public awareness campaigns using the FAST acronym.