The challenges of children's safety in pre-hospital emergencies: a qualitative study

Abstract

Objective: Exploring the challenges experienced by the pre-hospital emergency personnel to prevent the secondary injuries and provide more effective services to children can be helpful. This study aims to explain the safety challenges of children in the pre-hospital emergencies. Method: This qualitative study, which was conducted with the content analysis approach, was a semi-structured, and in-depth data collection process with the field notes for pre-hospital emergency personnel in Dezful city in 2022. Sampling was done in a targeted and available manner. The sampling process continued until the data saturation was reached. The trustworthiness of data was improved by reviewing and revising the data, experience and expertise of the interviewer, review of research participants and researchers. The research data, including interview texts and field notes, were divided into the semantic units, and then summarized by compression, and then abstracted in the order of subclasses, main classes, and finally themes. Results: Qualitative data analysis of interviews and notes led to the extraction of eight themes, which expressed the nature of children's safety challenges in the pre-hospital emergency: the lack of pre-hospital equipment for children, physical and mental characteristics of children, the lack of safety of vehicles for children, the lack of clinical skills of personnel for children, anxiety and non-cooperation of parents, operational and legal problems, the lack of attention to professional responsibility and high work pressure in children's missions . Conclusion: This study’s results showed that identifying children's safety challenges for pre-hospital emergency personnel can help better understand the care needs of this age group and help managers plan in order to reduce children's safety challenges in the pre-hospital missions.