Influences on ambulance staff’s understandings and safeguarding of ethical values

Background: Ambulance staff face ethical demands to safeguard patient dignity and autonomy in situations where these values may be threatened. However, influences on how patients are understood can undermine this safeguarding, potentially impacting health outcomes. To address this, increased knowledge of these influences is needed as well as how they may form the ability to protect ethical values.

Aim: The aim was to explore ambulance staff’s view of what influences their understandings of encounters with persons living in stigmatized neighborhoods.

Research Design: Transcripts from semi-structured interviews with ambulance staff were analyzed with content analysis.

Participant and Research Context: Twenty-seven ambulance staff members were included from two different Swedish ambulance districts.

Ethical Considerations: The study was conducted based on the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority.

Findings: Six categories emerged; Individual values; Colleagues; Associated organizations; Societal information; Professional experiences; and Management.

Conclusion: Ambulance staff’s understandings are influenced in a multifaceted way that can produce processes of othering toward persons tied to specific neighborhoods, ethnicities, or cultures. This process endangers the safeguarding of dignity and autonomy due to understandings of the patient as of less value. However, critical reflection and exposure to diverse perspectives can counteract this and protect these ethical values.