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Feeling safe or unsafe in prehospital emergency care: A qualitative study of the experiences of patients, carers and healthcare professionals
Author(s) -
PéculoCarrasco JuanAntonio,
De Sola Helena,
CasalSánchez MaríadelMar,
RodríguezBouza Mónica,
SánchezAlmagro CésarPedro,
Failde Inmaculada
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of clinical nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.94
H-Index - 102
eISSN - 1365-2702
pISSN - 0962-1067
DOI - 10.1111/jocn.15513
Subject(s) - feeling , qualitative research , checklist , focus group , exploratory research , medicine , nursing , health care , perception , nonprobability sampling , medical emergency , psychology , social psychology , population , social science , sociology , economics , economic growth , environmental health , marketing , neuroscience , anthropology , business , cognitive psychology
Aims and objectives To determine the feelings of safety among patients taken to hospital after requesting urgent care, based on their experiences and those of their carers and prehospital emergency care professionals. Background Little research has been performed into the perception of safety in prehospital emergency care settings worldwide, from either the perspective of the patients or from that of healthcare professionals. Design Exploratory qualitative study using focus groups in Spain. Methods The participants were patients that requested care through the emergency telephone service, their carers and the professionals of the emergency care teams. The structured sampling design was based on an intentional, nonprobability selection following pragmatic criteria. Seven groups of patients/carers and two groups of professionals were formed (65 participants). The recordings were fully transcribed before their validation and codes were assigned to ensure anonymity. The ATLAS.ti software was used for the analysis. The authors took into account the COREQ checklist for qualitative studies. Findings Neither group provided a clear definition of the meaning of feeling safe. It appeared easier to give examples that had a positive or negative influence on their perception of feeling safe. During the analysis of the discourse, six categories were detected after grouping the related codes. Conclusions For most of the patients’ feeling of being safe or very safe arose from the perception of calmness, trust and protection. Defining the perception of safety was not easy. The factors with the greatest effect on feeling safe were related to Information and communication , Person ‐ centred care and Professional competency , without losing sight of other factors such as Accessibility and response times of the emergency teams , Equipment and Healthcare setting . Relevance to clinical practice The findings could be used as a knowledge base in future research and for implementing procedures for improving perceptions of safety among patients.