Assessment And Handover First Aid Acronyms

Australian assessment and handover first aid acronyms for SAMPLE, OPQRST, PQRST, AVPU, GCS, LOC, ISBAR, SBAR, MIST and IMIST-AMBO.

Australian communication guide

Assessment And Handover First Aid Acronyms

A practical Australian guide to SAMPLE, OPQRST, PQRST, AVPU, GCS, LOC, ISBAR, SBAR, MIST, IMIST-AMBO, COWS, DRSABCD, DRABC and ABCDE.

Call Triple Zero (000) first for collapse, abnormal breathing, severe bleeding, stroke signs, chest pain, anaphylaxis, poisoning, major injury, seizures or rapid deterioration. Handover acronyms help after urgent action starts.
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Assessment and handover first aid acronyms visual guide

The Fast Answer

SAMPLE gathers the story, OPQRST and PQRST organise pain and symptom questions, AVPU, GCS and LOC describe responsiveness, and ISBAR, SBAR, MIST and IMIST-AMBO make handover clearer.

SAMPLE OPQRST AVPU ISBAR MIST IMIST-AMBO

Responsiveness And Consciousness

Use these when describing whether the person is alert, confused, responding only to voice, hard to rouse or unresponsive.

A

AVPU

AVPU First Aid: Alert, Voice, Pain, Unresponsive

AVPU is a quick way to describe a person’s level of responsiveness.

 G

GCS

GCS Meaning: Glasgow Coma Scale in First Aid Handover

GCS means Glasgow Coma Scale, a clinical score used to describe consciousness after illness or injury.

 L

LOC

LOC Meaning: Loss or Level of Consciousness

LOC usually means loss of consciousness or level of consciousness, depending on the context.

 C

COWS

COWS First Aid: A Simple Response Check

COWS is a first aid response check that helps you work out whether a person can hear, open their eyes and respond.

Questions That Build The Story

These help gather symptoms, medicines, allergies, timing, pain description and what happened without delaying urgent care.

S

SAMPLE

SAMPLE First Aid History: The Questions Worth Asking

SAMPLE helps first aiders gather useful information while help is coming.

 P

PQRST

PQRST Pain Assessment: A First Aid Question Framework

PQRST helps make pain questions specific enough to be useful.

 O

OPQRST

OPQRST Meaning: Pain Assessment Questions in First Aid and Handover

OPQRST is a pain and symptom assessment acronym: Onset, Provocation, Quality, Region, Severity and Time.

Structured Handover

These acronyms turn scattered facts into a clearer handover for 000, ambulance officers, nurses, workplace first aiders or supervisors.

I

ISBAR

ISBAR Meaning: A Safer Handover Framework

ISBAR means Identify, Situation, Background, Assessment and Recommendation: a structured way to hand over important information.

 S

SBAR

SBAR Meaning: Situation, Background, Assessment and Recommendation

SBAR is a communication acronym for Situation, Background, Assessment and Recommendation.

 M

MIST

MIST Handover: Mechanism, Injuries, Signs and Treatment

MIST is a compact trauma handover format: Mechanism, Injuries, Signs and Treatment.

 I

IMIST-AMBO

IMIST-AMBO Meaning: Australian Ambulance Handover Acronym

IMIST-AMBO is an Australian ambulance-to-hospital handover acronym for clear, structured patient information.

Primary Survey Language

These help readers separate public first aid action sequences from clinical assessment language and older first aid wording.

D

DRSABCD

DRSABCD Meaning: The Australian First Aid Action Plan

The big emergency sequence: Danger, Response, Send for help, Airway, Breathing, CPR and Defibrillation.

 D

DRABC

DRABC Meaning: The Older First Aid Primary Survey Acronym

DRABC means Danger, Response, Airway, Breathing and Circulation, an older first aid sequence now usually expanded to DRSABCD in Australia.

 A

ABCDE

ABCDE Meaning: Airway, Breathing, Circulation, Disability and Exposure

ABCDE is a structured assessment acronym used in emergency care to organise immediate problems by Airway, Breathing, Circulation, Disability and Exposure.

A Simple First Aid Handover Pattern

  • Start with the urgent problem: say what happened, where you are, what changed and whether 000 has been called.
  • Describe response and breathing: AVPU, LOC or plain English is useful, but airway and breathing remain the priority.
  • Add the useful history: SAMPLE and OPQRST can capture symptoms, allergies, medicines, past history, last food or drink and timing.
  • Finish with actions taken: tell the next responder about CPR, AED use, bleeding control, asthma or anaphylaxis actions, glucose treatment, positioning, monitoring and changes over time.

Common Handover Mistakes

Do not delay 000 while collecting a perfect history. Do not invent details to fill a letter. Do not hide uncertainty. A short, accurate handover is better than a long, polished one that buries the urgent problem.

?

Acronym Finder

Choose the right acronym by situation: collapse, pain, illness, injury, response level, workplace incident or handover.

 W

Workplace

Use handover acronyms with workplace first aid, WHS language, incident records and supervisor communication.

 H

Heart & Stroke

Connect OPQRST, SAMPLE and AVPU with chest pain, stroke signs, collapse and cardiac arrest language.
Assessment and handover source trail:

This guide is educational and does not replace accredited first aid training, workplace procedures, professional medical advice, emergency operators or directions from ambulance officers.