Acute chest pain emergencies – spouses’ prehospital experiences

The call to the Emergency Medical Dispatch Centre is often a person’s first contact with the health-care system in cases of acute illness or injury and acute chest pain is a common reason for calling. The aim was to illuminate how spouses to persons with acute chest pain experienced the alarm situation, the emergency call and the prehospital emergency care. Interviews were conducted with nineteen spouses. A phenomenological-hermeneutic approach was used for the analyses. The themes responsibility and uneasiness emerged as well as an overall theme of aloneness. Being a spouse to a person in need of acute medical and nursing assistance was interpreted as “Being responsible and trying to preserve life” and “Being able to manage the uneasiness and having trust in an uncertain situation.” When their partners’ life was at risk the spouses were in an escalating spiral of worry, uncertainty, stress, fear of loss, feeling of loneliness and desperation. They had to manage emotional distress and felt compelled to act to preserve life, a challenging situation.