A wide range of emotions in care encounters with children.

Need for more education on childcare due to lack of experiences.

The professional role different, some comforting and some pretending.

A trusting relationship within the team helps manage stress.

Reflection after care encounters might decrease their stress onwards.

Care encounters with children are a challenging and important task, but opportunities for such encounters are rarely available. Therefore, ambulance nurses (ANs) face difficulties in gaining experience in properly handling children, which can lead to stress for the ANs. A deeper understanding of ANs’ emotions through the course of the care encounter is needed.

To describe how ambulance nurses’ feel and manage their emotions before, during and after a care encounter with a child.

A qualitative approach was adopted, with content analysis being performed on seventeen individual interviews.

Three themes were identified: Feeling worried and insecure, Emotional surge, and Mixed feelings of satisfaction and concern.

The ANs experienced a range of emotions during a care encounter with children as they had little experience with it. More training and education in paediatric care could benefit ANs. The ANs use professionalism during care encounters to create a calm and secure atmosphere for families. Their will to bring about a safe journey for the child and family through the care encounter supersedes their nervousness. Reflection after a care encounter could strengthen their confidence in their professional role and reduce emotional distress in future encounters.

Ambulances

Nursing

Child

Emergency Medical Services

Reflection

Professional Competence

© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.