Centre for Palliative Care.
Division of Medical Psychology, Third Faculty of Medicine, Charles University.
Eur J Emerg Med. 2024 Jun 1;31(3):195-200. doi: 10.1097/MEJ.0000000000001119. Epub 2024 Jan 10.
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.
The aim was to explore informal caregivers' motivation and decision-making process for calling emergency medical services for their terminally ill loved ones.
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.
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.
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.
尽管紧急医疗服务的重点是提供急性院外治疗，但在患者生命的最后几天，它经常被绝症患者及其非正式照顾者使用。对于他们为什么决定使用紧急医疗服务，知之甚少。
本研究旨在探讨非正式照顾者为其绝症亲人呼叫紧急医疗服务的动机和决策过程。
本研究采用定性设计。通过对 30 名使用紧急医疗服务的患者的 31 名亲属进行半结构化访谈收集数据。利用主题分析原则，使用 NVivo 软件对数据进行分析。
通过分析，出现了四个不同的主题：（1）卫生保健服务的支持有限；（2）护理计划不足；（3）患者健康状况下降；（4）迷茫和绝望。
对于非正式照顾者来说，由于其他帮助来源有限，包括缺乏专业姑息治疗提供者，紧急医疗服务是照顾绝症亲人时的重要支持来源。此外，非正式照顾者对临终过程的了解有限，他们使用紧急医疗服务寻求专业建议。
