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Experiences of pre-hospital emergency medical personnel in ethical decision-making: a qualitative study

BACKGROUND: Emergency care providers regularly deal with ethical dilemmas that must be addressed. In comparison with in-hospital nurses, emergency medical service (EMS) personnel are faced with more problems such as distance to resources including personnel, medico-technical aids, and information; t...

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Autores principales: Torabi, Mohammad, Borhani, Fariba, Abbaszadeh, Abbas, Atashzadeh-Shoorideh, Foroozan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6299934/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30567524
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12910-018-0334-x
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author Torabi, Mohammad
Borhani, Fariba
Abbaszadeh, Abbas
Atashzadeh-Shoorideh, Foroozan
author_facet Torabi, Mohammad
Borhani, Fariba
Abbaszadeh, Abbas
Atashzadeh-Shoorideh, Foroozan
author_sort Torabi, Mohammad
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Emergency care providers regularly deal with ethical dilemmas that must be addressed. In comparison with in-hospital nurses, emergency medical service (EMS) personnel are faced with more problems such as distance to resources including personnel, medico-technical aids, and information; the unpredictable atmosphere at the scene; arriving at the crime scene and providing emergency care for accident victims and patients at home. As a result of stressfulness, unpredictability, and often the life threatening nature of tasks that ambulance professionals have to deal with every day, ethical decision-making (EDM) has become an inevitable challenge. METHODS: The content analysis approach was used to conduct the present qualitative study in Iran. The participants consisted of 14 EMS personnel selected through purposive sampling, which continued until the data became saturated. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analyzed concurrently with their collection through the constant comparison method. RESULTS: The process of data analysis resulted in the emergence of 3 main categories “respecting client’s values”, “performing tasks within the professional manner”, “personal characteristic”, and the emergence of eight (8) sub-categories signifying participants’ experiences with regard to EDM. CONCLUSION: According to the results, when EMS personnel are faced with ethical dilemmas, they consider the client’s values and professional dignity, and perform the assigned tasks within the framework of the regulation. The findings also suggest that pre-hospital care providers assess legal consequences before making any decision. Further studies should be conducted regarding the experiences of the subordinates and other related parties.
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spelling pubmed-62999342018-12-20 Experiences of pre-hospital emergency medical personnel in ethical decision-making: a qualitative study Torabi, Mohammad Borhani, Fariba Abbaszadeh, Abbas Atashzadeh-Shoorideh, Foroozan BMC Med Ethics Research Article BACKGROUND: Emergency care providers regularly deal with ethical dilemmas that must be addressed. In comparison with in-hospital nurses, emergency medical service (EMS) personnel are faced with more problems such as distance to resources including personnel, medico-technical aids, and information; the unpredictable atmosphere at the scene; arriving at the crime scene and providing emergency care for accident victims and patients at home. As a result of stressfulness, unpredictability, and often the life threatening nature of tasks that ambulance professionals have to deal with every day, ethical decision-making (EDM) has become an inevitable challenge. METHODS: The content analysis approach was used to conduct the present qualitative study in Iran. The participants consisted of 14 EMS personnel selected through purposive sampling, which continued until the data became saturated. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analyzed concurrently with their collection through the constant comparison method. RESULTS: The process of data analysis resulted in the emergence of 3 main categories “respecting client’s values”, “performing tasks within the professional manner”, “personal characteristic”, and the emergence of eight (8) sub-categories signifying participants’ experiences with regard to EDM. CONCLUSION: According to the results, when EMS personnel are faced with ethical dilemmas, they consider the client’s values and professional dignity, and perform the assigned tasks within the framework of the regulation. The findings also suggest that pre-hospital care providers assess legal consequences before making any decision. Further studies should be conducted regarding the experiences of the subordinates and other related parties. BioMed Central 2018-12-19 /pmc/articles/PMC6299934/ /pubmed/30567524 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12910-018-0334-x Text en © The Author(s). 2018 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Torabi, Mohammad
Borhani, Fariba
Abbaszadeh, Abbas
Atashzadeh-Shoorideh, Foroozan
Experiences of pre-hospital emergency medical personnel in ethical decision-making: a qualitative study
title Experiences of pre-hospital emergency medical personnel in ethical decision-making: a qualitative study
title_full Experiences of pre-hospital emergency medical personnel in ethical decision-making: a qualitative study
title_fullStr Experiences of pre-hospital emergency medical personnel in ethical decision-making: a qualitative study
title_full_unstemmed Experiences of pre-hospital emergency medical personnel in ethical decision-making: a qualitative study
title_short Experiences of pre-hospital emergency medical personnel in ethical decision-making: a qualitative study
title_sort experiences of pre-hospital emergency medical personnel in ethical decision-making: a qualitative study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6299934/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30567524
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12910-018-0334-x
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