Exploring the challenges to telephone triage in pre-hospital emergency care: a qualitative content analysis

BACKGROUND: One of the important indices for the efficacy of pre-hospital emergency services is telephone triage. The dispatching team members are faced with many challenges in telephone triage which can adversely affect their performance. This study was conducted in the south of Iran to determine the challenges to telephone triage in pre-hospital emergency services. METHOD: The present study is qualitative-descriptive where the sample was selected purposefully. Data were collected through 18 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 18 dispatching team members in pre-hospital emergency care. The collected qualitative data were analyzed using the content analysis approach recommended by Graneheim and Lundman. RESULTS: Analysis of the data resulted in the emergence of three themes and ten sub-themes. The three main themes extracted from the data included inefficient interaction, insufficient and unreal information, and professional challenges. CONCLUSION: The dispatching unit personnel in pre-hospital emergency care are confronted with various interactional, organizational, and professional issues. Accordingly, the senior managers in emergency departments should take effective measures to remove the existing barriers toward improving the efficacy of telephone triage and, by extension, the quality of pre-hospital emergency care services. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-022-08585-z.