Family Presence and Audience Effects on Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation: Perceptions of Pre-hospital Emergency Caregivers in Turkey

Abstract

Background: There have been many studies regarding family presence during cardiopulmonary resuscitation and most of them are about emergency services or intensive care units. However, the issue has not been studied enough in terms of pre-hospital emergency medicine and the perspective of pre-hospital emergency caregivers. Aim: In this study, it is aimed to present the perceptions and attitudes of a group of pre-hospital emergency care professionals to family presence during cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Method: The data for this descriptive research was collected between March-May 2015. The participants were 63 pre-hospital healthcares from a small city, Afyonkarahisar. The data was collected using a questionnaire and the responses summarized by using frequencies and percentages. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize the sample and each of the survey items. Findings: Of the respondents, for demographic findings of each groups by highest rates; 38 (60.32%) were male, 31 (49.21%) were paramedics and 37 (58.73%) were 1-3 years work experienced. 65.07% were strongly opposed to the family presence during CPR. Among the total sample, 71.41% of participants did not agree with that the presence of press members positively affects their performance. Conclusion: The presence of significant others during CPR affects pre-hospital emergency caregivers negatively. Disturbing effect on caregivers is related not only to the presence of family members or to other significant others but also related to the press and audience. Family presence causes health professionals to experience performance anxiety. Family presence and the audience effect are crucial issues that need more attention in pre-hospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

The relationship between self-confidence and attitude of prehospital emergency personnel towards family presence during resuscitation

“…The results showed that the score of the personnel members' attitudes towards FPDR was lower than the mean value. These results are in line with the results of the studies which were conducted in Turkey [11] and Portugal [33] which they reported that the majority of prehospital emergency personnel members disagreed with the family presence during resuscitation. Furthermore, the results of other studies have indicated that most of the EMS team members do not prefer to provide resuscitation in the presence of the patents' family members and a large number of them feel uncomfortable about resuscitating the patients in the presence of their family members [9,10].…”

“…This statistic was 87% in France [9] and 95.3% in the United States of America [10]. These results show that the presence of family members during the patients' prehospital resuscitation is very common and the personnel members have considerable experience of resuscitation in the presence of the patients' family members [9][10][11]. Therefore, these experiences can be used to develop training guidelines for the personnel in order to support the patients' family members during their resuscitation in prehospital emergency.…”

“…Moreover, Twibell et al [29] and Tudor et al [30] found that nurses with higher levels of self-con dence had more positive attitudes towards FPDR. Although there are many studies on the perception of physicians, nurses and other health care providers of family presence during resuscitation in the hospital settings, few studies have examined the prehospital emergency personnel members' perspectives on the family presence during resuscitation [11]. Moreover, the self-con dence and the attitudes of the prehospital emergency personnel towards FPDR has not been studied in the previous research.…”

“…Although there are many studies on the family presence during resuscitation in the hospital settings, few studies have investigated the attitudes of prehospital emergency personnel towards FPDR. The result of a study in Turkey showed that 65.07% of EMS personnel strongly disagreed with the FPDR [11]. Likewise, the results of another study in France showed that many doctors and nurses working in EMS disagreed with the family presence during resuscitation.…”

“…The results of the previous studies have shown that the family presence during resuscitation is an integral part of the resuscitation scenes outside the hospital [9][10][11]. The results of a study of prehospital resuscitation in Iran showed that 83.1% and 11.5% of resuscitations were performed in patients' homes and in public places, respectively [12].…”