The role of the patient in patient assessment

Despite the differences in emergency healthcare provision between Sweden and the UK, this qualitative study provides interesting data related to patient assessment which has relevance to an international audience.

Spotlight on Research: a review

This is the 34th edition of the JPP and I thought it timely to refect upon Spotlight on Research after nearly 3 years of publishing reviews. Hopefully, this section of the JPP provides a useful resource for readers who may not always have the opportunity to access other journals on a regular basis. Our reviews keep readers up-to-date with some of the prehospital related research that has been published elsewhere.

By design, the reviews are brief—somewhere between 220 and 230 words—and they are not intended to be a substitute for a full, critical analysis of the original paper. The purpose of each individual review is to highlight key issues and provide an overview of the study's research design and methodology (including reference to some of its limitations if appropriate), as well as to identify the relevance of the results and/or findings to the paramedic profession, although inevitably this will be restricted to brief commentary given the word limit.

Over the years we have had positive comments about Spotlight on Research, and, overall, it seems to be well received by our readership. One aspect that we might consider changing in the future is the length of the reviews and I am interested to know which option you would prefer:

Please email your comments to: J.Williams@herts.ac.uk as your feedback is important in determining the future shape of Spotlight on Research.

The authors adopt a reflective lifeworld research approach (Dahlberg et al, 2008) to further explore processes of patient assessment undertaken by professional practitioners in the emergency prehospital setting. Eleven participants comprising 6 paramedics, 3 registered nurses and 2 specialist ambulance nurses participated in the study. Data includes field notes from observation of 25 prehospital encounters, and a total of 8 hours of interviews which were recorded and transcribed.

Rigorous analysis of these data facilitated identification of five key themes related to patient assessment in prehospital emergency care: making room for ‘caring’ assessment; being close to the patient; care governed by the patient's life-world and suffering; when care is governed by the patient's medical condition; cooperation benefits the assessment.

The authors acknowledge the associated limitations of small-scale, exploratory studies and they emphasize the need for further research to examine the impact of ‘caring’ assessments on patient outcomes.

Patient assessment may need to be adapted if in time-critical situations but the authors suggest that the ‘caring’ elements of patient assessment could still be incorporated, thus recognizing the importance of the patients’ life-world perspectives and experiences and encouraging active partnership working between the prehospital clinician and the patient.