Frontline ambulance staff have high rates of sickness absence; far greater than any other National Health Service worker. Reports suggest that many of these instances are attributable to stress, anxiety and depression. Indeed, studies have observed that occupational stress is significant within the Ambulance Service. While academics frequently associate the causative factor as being related to traumatic incident exposure, there is a small, growing trend of researchers who have found that daily hassles are equally, if not a greater source of stress. Many of the studies investigating the psychological aftermath of a stressful occupational experience focus on formal coping strategies such as critical incident debriefing and trauma risk incident management. However, it has been found that paramedics often prefer to manage stressful feelings informally within their own occupational culture. This literature review explored these informal coping strategies, and found that cognitive mechanisms and peer support were the most used methods. Research in this domain is currently very limited; therefore, this review identifies several areas for further study.
Pulse oximetry is widely used in the prehospital environment, yet researchers question whether health professionals fully understand the theory to support the practical application of its use. This article explores the fundamental theory of pulse oximetry to give applied understanding. From a prehospital perspective, it details and examines the advantages and limitations of this observational aid, which must be considered when making clinical decisions regarding a patient's care.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.