Planning for Chaos: Developing the Concept of Emergency Preparedness through the Experience of the Paramedic

Emergency preparedness is a developing specialty with a limited evidence base. Published literature primarily offers a retrospective view of experience, with few studies examining and understanding the individual lived experience of practitioners prospectively. This study explores paramedics' lived experience of emergency preparedness and applies that learning.

Thirteen paramedics were recruited through purposive sampling. Face-to-face semi-structured interviews explored their individual experiences of emergency preparedness, in line with the idiographic focus of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.

Through data analysis, the following superordinate themes were identified for further discussion: self-determination, control, and experience-based practice. Participants appeared to value their role and the unpredictable environment in which they worked. Personal resilience, an area that they suggested is not covered effectively within individual preparation, was viewed as important. The participants articulated that risk, threat, uncertainty, safety, trust, and control were important concepts within individual preparedness. These paramedics valued practice-based knowledge and education as credible and transferrable to their clinical work.

Evidence from this study suggests that standard emergency preparedness, with the focus at organizational level, is not sufficient for the individual workers or for an overall effective response. Dimensions of individual preparedness are presented, with the paramedic central to the experience within a conceptual model (the DiEP model), creating a new form of emergency preparedness that reflects the individual paramedic's experience.