[Emergency medical services during the Nijmegen march in 1987. A consecutive prospective study]

In connection with the international Nijmegen march, EDB controlled registration of the first-aid services provided by the Danish first-aid team was carried out. The object of this was to register the pattern of injuries among the participants and correlate this with their health backgrounds in order to assess the possibility of selecting potential risk groups among the participants. Out of 487 uniformed Danish participants (442 men and 45 women) 249 (51.1%) consulted the first-aid team. In addition, 70 other persons also consulted the first-aid team. These consisted mainly of foreigners in uniform and Danish civilian participants. The 319 participants received a total of 862 EDB registered services: 140 (44%) consulted the first-aid team on one occasion while the remaining 179 (56%) had from two to 16 consultations (mean three). The median age was significantly higher for those who had one consultation only as compared with the remainder (24 as compared with 22 years). Just under 2/3 of the participants who received first-aid services were smokers and significantly more smokers were found among those who participated for the first time. Uniformed persons from the womens' services who participated differed from their male colleagues by having significantly fewer skin complaints. A total of nine out of the 487 participants dropped out (1.8%) but only eight of these had been in contact with the first-aid services. These figures are too limited to permit selection of actual risk groups.