‘You're never making just one decision’: exploring the lived experiences of ambulance Emergency Operations Centre personnel
Coxon, Astrid Cropley, Mark Schofield, Pat Start, Kath Horsfield, Claire Quinn, Tom
Coxon, Astrid
Cropley, Mark
Schofield, Pat
Start, Kath
Horsfield, Claire
Quinn, Tom
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Abstract
Background The aim of this study was to explore the
experiences of ambulance dispatch personnel, identifying
key stressors and their impact on staff well-being.
Methods Qualitative methodology was used. Nine
semistructured interviews were conducted with National
Health Service (NHS) ambulance Emergency Operations
Centre (EOC) dispatch personnel in the UK between July
and August 2014. Participants were asked about their
experiences of the role, stress experienced and current
strategies they use to deal with stress. Transcripts were
analysed using an inductive, bottom-up thematic
analysis.
Results Three key themes were identified: (1) ‘How
dispatch is perceived by others’, (2) ‘What dispatch really
involves’ and (3) ‘Dealing with the stresses of dispatch’.
All participants expressed pride in their work, but felt
overloaded by the workload and undervalued by others.
Several sources of additional stress, not directly related
to the execution of their work, were identified, including
the need to mentally unwind from work at the end of a
shift. Participants were able to identify a number of ways
in which they currently manage work-related stress, but
they also suggested changes the organisation could put
in place in order to reduce stress in the working
environment.
Conclusions Building on existing theory on work stress
and postwork recovery, it was concluded that EOC
dispatch staff require greater support at work, including
skills training to promote postshift recovery, in order to
reduce the likelihood of sickness absence, and prevent
work-related fatigue.
https://emj.bmj.com/content/emermed/33/9/645.full.pdf
This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/emermed-2015-204841