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“If you miss that first step in the chain of survival, there is no second step”–Emergency ambulance call-takers’ experiences in managing out-of-hospital cardiac arrest calls

When a person has an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), calling the ambulance for help is the first link in the chain of survival. Ambulance call-takers guide the caller to perform life-saving interventions on the patient before the paramedics arrive at the scene, therefore, their actions, decis...

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Autores principales: Perera, Nirukshi, Birnie, Tanya, Whiteside, Austin, Ball, Stephen, Finn, Judith
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10010558/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36913363
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279521
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author Perera, Nirukshi
Birnie, Tanya
Whiteside, Austin
Ball, Stephen
Finn, Judith
author_facet Perera, Nirukshi
Birnie, Tanya
Whiteside, Austin
Ball, Stephen
Finn, Judith
author_sort Perera, Nirukshi
collection PubMed
description When a person has an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), calling the ambulance for help is the first link in the chain of survival. Ambulance call-takers guide the caller to perform life-saving interventions on the patient before the paramedics arrive at the scene, therefore, their actions, decisions and communication are integral to saving the patient’s life. In 2021, we conducted open-ended interviews with 10 ambulance call-takers with the aim of understanding their experiences of managing these phone calls; and to explore their views on using a standardised call protocol and triage system for OHCA calls. We took a realist/essentialist methodological approach and applied an inductive, semantic and reflexive thematic analysis to the interview data to yield four main themes expressed by the call-takers: 1) time-critical nature of OHCA calls; 2) the call-taking process; 3) caller management; 4) protecting the self. The study found that call-takers demonstrated deep reflection on their roles in, not only helping the patient, but also the callers and bystanders to manage a potentially distressing event. Call-takers expressed their confidence in using a structured call-taking process and noted the importance of skills and traits such as active listening, probing, empathy and intuition, based on experience, in order to supplement the use of a standardised system in managing the emergency. This study highlights the often under-acknowledged yet critical role of the ambulance call-taker in being the first member of an emergency medical service that is contacted in the event of an OHCA.
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spelling pubmed-100105582023-03-14 “If you miss that first step in the chain of survival, there is no second step”–Emergency ambulance call-takers’ experiences in managing out-of-hospital cardiac arrest calls Perera, Nirukshi Birnie, Tanya Whiteside, Austin Ball, Stephen Finn, Judith PLoS One Research Article When a person has an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), calling the ambulance for help is the first link in the chain of survival. Ambulance call-takers guide the caller to perform life-saving interventions on the patient before the paramedics arrive at the scene, therefore, their actions, decisions and communication are integral to saving the patient’s life. In 2021, we conducted open-ended interviews with 10 ambulance call-takers with the aim of understanding their experiences of managing these phone calls; and to explore their views on using a standardised call protocol and triage system for OHCA calls. We took a realist/essentialist methodological approach and applied an inductive, semantic and reflexive thematic analysis to the interview data to yield four main themes expressed by the call-takers: 1) time-critical nature of OHCA calls; 2) the call-taking process; 3) caller management; 4) protecting the self. The study found that call-takers demonstrated deep reflection on their roles in, not only helping the patient, but also the callers and bystanders to manage a potentially distressing event. Call-takers expressed their confidence in using a structured call-taking process and noted the importance of skills and traits such as active listening, probing, empathy and intuition, based on experience, in order to supplement the use of a standardised system in managing the emergency. This study highlights the often under-acknowledged yet critical role of the ambulance call-taker in being the first member of an emergency medical service that is contacted in the event of an OHCA. Public Library of Science 2023-03-13 /pmc/articles/PMC10010558/ /pubmed/36913363 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279521 Text en © 2023 Perera et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Perera, Nirukshi
Birnie, Tanya
Whiteside, Austin
Ball, Stephen
Finn, Judith
“If you miss that first step in the chain of survival, there is no second step”–Emergency ambulance call-takers’ experiences in managing out-of-hospital cardiac arrest calls
title “If you miss that first step in the chain of survival, there is no second step”–Emergency ambulance call-takers’ experiences in managing out-of-hospital cardiac arrest calls
title_full “If you miss that first step in the chain of survival, there is no second step”–Emergency ambulance call-takers’ experiences in managing out-of-hospital cardiac arrest calls
title_fullStr “If you miss that first step in the chain of survival, there is no second step”–Emergency ambulance call-takers’ experiences in managing out-of-hospital cardiac arrest calls
title_full_unstemmed “If you miss that first step in the chain of survival, there is no second step”–Emergency ambulance call-takers’ experiences in managing out-of-hospital cardiac arrest calls
title_short “If you miss that first step in the chain of survival, there is no second step”–Emergency ambulance call-takers’ experiences in managing out-of-hospital cardiac arrest calls
title_sort “if you miss that first step in the chain of survival, there is no second step”–emergency ambulance call-takers’ experiences in managing out-of-hospital cardiac arrest calls
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10010558/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36913363
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279521
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