The encounter with the unknown: Nurses lived experiences of their responsibility for the care of the patient in the Swedish ambulance service

Abstract

Registered nurses (RNs) have, according to the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare, the overall responsibility for the medical care in the ambulance care setting. Bringing RNs into the ambulance service are judged, according to earlier studies, to lead to a degree of professionalism with a higher quality of medical care. Implicitly in earlier studies, the work in the ambulance service involves interpersonal skills. The aim of this study was to describe RNs’ experiences of being responsible for the care of the patient in the Swedish ambulance service. A reflective lifeworld approach within the perspective of caring science was used. Five RNs with at least five years experience from care in the ambulance care setting were interviewed. The findings show that the essence of the phenomenon is to prepare and create conditions for care and to accomplish care close to the patient. Three meaning constituents emerged in the descriptions: prepare and create conditions for the nursing care, to be there for the patient and significant others and create comfort for the patient and significant others. The responsibility is a complex phenomenon, with a caring perspective, emerging from the encounter with the unique human being.

• Ambulance care
• prehospital care
• caring science
• responsibility
• encounter
• phenomenology

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the RNs who participated in the study, Sörmlands County Council the R&D Center/Center for Clinical Research and Mrs. Bodil Bergman Hughes, Mr. Michael Hughes and Mr. Ola Sonmark for helpful linguistic revision.