References
Developing understanding and awareness of children's distress, distraction techniques and holding
Abstract
Purpose:
This project aimed to evaluate the influence of an education session on ambulance clinicians' understanding and awareness of children's distress, distraction techniques and holding in the pre-hospital setting.
Methods:
An inter-professional education session that focused on raising awareness of children's distress, the use of distraction techniques and clinical holding during pre-hospital care was provided. A mixed methods approach was then used to evaluate both existing and newly acquired knowledge and opinion through the use of questionnaires (
Results:
Despite literature suggesting that ambulance clinicians may not use distraction techniques during pre-hospital care, data gained from this project indicates that use of distraction techniques is widespread (92%,
Conclusions:
Ambulance clinicians endeavour to provide a positive experience for children undergoing procedures, despite reported limitations in education, exposure and equipment. By using a collaborative and consultative education event, it is possible to facilitate ambulance clinicians to challenge their practice and improve their reported knowledge of dealing with children during procedures in the pre-hospital setting. Additional work needs to be undertaken to further explore and improve pre-hospital practice in relation to children's distress and clinical procedures.
The UK ambulance service has experienced many changes over the past 10 years, shaped to a large extent by national policy documents including High Quality Care For All (Darzi, 2008), Equity and Excellence (Department of Health (DH), 2010) and most recently, Transforming Urgent and Emergency Care (NHS England, 2013). These policy documents identify the need to improve the quality of pre-hospital care and to increase the level of skilled intervention provided by ambulance clinicians.
It is important that the improvement of services and care should be informed by evidence. A lack of research-orientated ambulance clinicians has led to pre-hospital care and clinical guidance being predominantly informed by evidence from other professions (Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, 2013). This paucity of evidence is particularly apparent in the pre-hospital care of children. Many children cared for in the pre-hospital context require procedures and treatments which can be unpleasant and cause children to experience increased upset, distress, fear and vulnerability. This paper reports on a project which focused on the pre-hospital care of children during clinical procedures.
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