Aim: The aim of this study was to explore the attitudes and practices of the emergency staff
working in the level one emergency departments in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, with
regard to witnessed resuscitation.
Methodology: A qualitative approach was used to explore the attitudes and practices of
the staff. Two semi - structured interviews were conducted with each participant, an initial
and a verifying interview, with each interview lasting between 15 - 30 minutes long. The
researcher applied the principle oftheoretical saturation and a total ofsix participants from two
of the four level one emergency departments were included in this study. One provincial and
one private emergency department were chosen. All of the interviews were taped and
transcribed prior to manual analysis, in which categories and themes were identified from the
data.
Findings: The emergency staff disliked the idea of witnessed resuscitation. They believed
it to be a harmful experience for the witnesses, a threat to the resuscitation process, threatening
for the emergency staff, and impossible to implement in their emergency departments that are
already short of staff and space. Although these were their dominant feelings, there were
subtle references made during the interviews that revealed that there were some aspects of
witnessed resuscitation that they liked once they had considered the practice.
There were no written policies to dictate how the relatives were handled, but all the staff
agreed that the relatives were asked to wait outside-of the resuscitation area, they were kept
informed and then brought in when the patient was stable or had died. A number of
recommendations are suggested for education, practice and further research in an attempt to
introduce witnessed resuscitation as an option in KwaZulu-Natal's emergency departments. / Thesis (M.Cur.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2001.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ukzn/oai:http://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za:10413/4604 |
| Date | January 2001 |
| Creators | Goodenough, Toni Jennifer. |
| Contributors | Brysiewicz, Petra. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en_ZA |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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