Kristýna Poláková, Helena Brýdlová, Marek Uhlíř, David Peřan, Karolína Vlčková, Martin Loučka
{"title":"Calling emergency medical services for terminally ill patients: a qualitative study exploring reasons why informal caregivers make the call.","authors":"Kristýna Poláková, Helena Brýdlová, Marek Uhlíř, David Peřan, Karolína Vlčková, Martin Loučka","doi":"10.1097/MEJ.0000000000001119","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Although emergency medical service is focused on providing acute prehospital treatment, it is often used by terminally ill patients and their informal caregivers during the last days of patient's life. Little is known about why they decide to use the emergency medical services.</p><p><strong>Study objective: </strong>The aim was to explore informal caregivers' motivation and decision-making process for calling emergency medical services for their terminally ill loved ones.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>This study used a qualitative design. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews with 31 relatives of 30 patients who used the emergency medical services. Data were analyzed with NVivo software by utilizing principles of thematic analysis.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Through the analysis, four distinct themes emerged: (1) limited availability of support from health care services; (2) insufficient planning of care; (3) decline in the health of the patient and (4) being lost and desperate.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>For informal caregivers, emergency medical services represented an important source of support while caring for their terminally ill loved ones due to the limited availability of other sources of help, including a lack of specialist palliative care providers. Additionally, informal caregivers had limited knowledge of the dying process and used emergency medical services for professional advice.</p>","PeriodicalId":11893,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Emergency Medicine","volume":" ","pages":"195-200"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"European Journal of Emergency Medicine","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1097/MEJ.0000000000001119","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/1/10 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"EMERGENCY MEDICINE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: Although emergency medical service is focused on providing acute prehospital treatment, it is often used by terminally ill patients and their informal caregivers during the last days of patient's life. Little is known about why they decide to use the emergency medical services.
Study objective: The aim was to explore informal caregivers' motivation and decision-making process for calling emergency medical services for their terminally ill loved ones.
Methods: This study used a qualitative design. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews with 31 relatives of 30 patients who used the emergency medical services. Data were analyzed with NVivo software by utilizing principles of thematic analysis.
Results: Through the analysis, four distinct themes emerged: (1) limited availability of support from health care services; (2) insufficient planning of care; (3) decline in the health of the patient and (4) being lost and desperate.
Conclusion: For informal caregivers, emergency medical services represented an important source of support while caring for their terminally ill loved ones due to the limited availability of other sources of help, including a lack of specialist palliative care providers. Additionally, informal caregivers had limited knowledge of the dying process and used emergency medical services for professional advice.
期刊介绍：
The European Journal of Emergency Medicine is the official journal of the European Society for Emergency Medicine. It is devoted to serving the European emergency medicine community and to promoting European standards of training, diagnosis and care in this rapidly growing field.
Published bimonthly, the Journal offers original papers on all aspects of acute injury and sudden illness, including: emergency medicine, anaesthesiology, cardiology, disaster medicine, intensive care, internal medicine, orthopaedics, paediatrics, toxicology and trauma care. It addresses issues on the organization of emergency services in hospitals and in the community and examines postgraduate training from European and global perspectives. The Journal also publishes papers focusing on the different models of emergency healthcare delivery in Europe and beyond. With a multidisciplinary approach, the European Journal of Emergency Medicine publishes scientific research, topical reviews, news of meetings and events of interest to the emergency medicine community.
Submitted articles undergo a preliminary review by the editor. Some articles may be returned to authors without further consideration. Those being considered for publication will undergo further assessment and peer-review by the editors and those invited to do so from a reviewer pool.
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：
京公网安备 11010802042870号
