The Emergency Medical Service personnel's perception of the transportation of young children.

To our knowledge no previous studies have been made which describe the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) personnel's perceptions of transporting children and the care encounter between the child, the parent and the EMS personnel when separating the child and the parent specifically in an ambulance. The aim of this study was to gain an understanding of how EMS personnel perceive ambulance transport of children. The study was carried out in 2012 at one of three ambulance contractors in Stockholm. Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted and the content analysis showed that transporting children induces stress and is deemed a precarious task by EMS personnel mainly because children are considered more vulnerable than adults and because of the necessity to separate the child from the parent during transport. There is a conflict between medical- and emotional wellbeing and traffic-safety during the transportation of children and a fear of insufficient ability to care for the child. The EMS personnel's vulnerability is evident in the complicated care situation associated with transporting children in an ambulance. These findings may be considered a first step in assessing if action is needed to improve care and patient safety during ambulance transportation of children.