Home healthcare nurses’ experiences of being on stand by as a first responder in a ‘While
Waiting For the Ambulance’ assignment
Sammanfattning
The aim of the study is to describe experiences of the ‘While Waiting for the Ambulance’
(WWFA) assignment, as described by home healthcare nurses (HHCNs). Since the early 1990s,
municipal resources in Sweden, preferably firefighters, have been dispatched on WWFA. In order to
further assist the local residents on an island in the southwest of Sweden, HHCNs have recently
begun accompanying firefighters on WWFA. A reflective lifeworld approach was used for data
analysis including in-depth interviews with eight HHCNs. When WWFA was established, the HHCNs
experienced lack of clarity in where their responsibilities start and end. A split role is described, and
there is a paradox in that the responders are meant to collaborate toward saving lives, when the
assignment itself has a lack of collaborative structure. Ethical dilemmas and inner emotional worries
led to the nurses expressing a need for support before, during and after WWFA.