Development of a tool to measure the degree of communication and conflict that exists between emergency department nurses and paramedics
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Author/Creator ORCID
Date
1996
Department
Nursing
Program
Citation of Original Publication
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Abstract
This study was undertaken to develop a tool that would examine the
degree of conflict that exists between emergency room nurses and paramedics. The
research was to be descriptive involving quantitative study of the relationships between
variables. The variables include: interaction between ER nurses and paramedics prior to
patient arrival in the emergency room, the different perspectives on patient care, and the
differences in perceptions of job descriptions, responsibility, and roles of nurses and
paramedics in an emergency department setting.
The setting is via computer email. The questionnaire was developed, then sent
by email to the primary study subjects, and was then mailed back to the researcher at
her home address. The subjects were all members of America On Line and from the
USA. The researcher performed a pilot study in Salisbury using a convenience group of
five paramedics and five nurses from the local area.
The subjects were chosen from the member profiles utilized on America On
Line(AOL). A search was done by job description only. The list generated by the search was of screen names and no other personal information was obtained. The researcher
sent by email, a cover letter to each subject describing the nature of the research. The
subjects were required to read the questionnaire, answer it, and then mail the
questionnaire back to the researcher. The questionnaire was sent to 51 nurses and 57
paramedics.
There were minimal risks involved in this research. The subjects were only
asked if they were paid or volunteers, if they were nurses or paramedics, if they were
male or female, and how many years of experience and education they had. No other
identifiers were used.
Benefits Benefits to the subjects included, the satisfaction of participation in the research
of the topic and the contribution to the development of a tool that could be used to
improve relationships between nurses and paramedics. The global benefits were in five
different areas: better continuity of patient care, improved understanding of the
attitudes of nurses to paramedics and paramedics to nurses, improved working
relationships based on professional respect and understanding, improved understanding
of the conflicts that exist between nurses and paramedics, and better team work. Consent
was not written. The cover letter of the questionnaire acted as a disclosure and advised
the subject that if they returned the questionnaire, consent would be implied.The examination of conflict between nurses in an Emergency Department and
paramedics required the development of two hypotheses. Descriptive statistics were used to examine the answers of the study subjects and a summated rating scale was chosen as
the type of questionnaire to be used. Reliability of the tool was examined in the pilot
study and changes were made to clarify questions. The primary study was also examined
for questionnaire reliability , and items were discovered to again need rewording. Some
of the items on the questionnaire required reverse scoring for the purpose of determining
a conflict score. The higher the score on items 7 to 17, the more conflict was present.
Research Hypothesis 1 and 2 related to the understanding by each group of educational
background, patient care focus, and perceptions. Both hypotheses were supported by the
findings of the study. Conclusions that were based on the findings of this study included: (1) the
conflict that occurs between nurses and paramedics in the Emergency Department setting
can be measured using a summation scale, (2) there is conflict that exists between nurses
and paramedics due to lack of understanding of each others educational background, job
focus, and perceptions, and (3) there is little difference between conflict scores of paid
paramedics and those of volunteer paramedics.