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Qualitative Health Research
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To Survive Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest: A Search for Meaning and Coherence

Anders Bremer

University College of Borås, Borås, Sweden, and Växjö University, Växjö, Sweden

Karin Dahlberg

Växjö University, Växjö, Sweden

Lars Sandman

University College of Borås, Borås, Sweden

The primary responsibility of prehospital emergency personnel at out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) is to provide lifesaving care. Ethical considerations, decisions, and actions should be based in the patient's beliefs about health and well-being. In this article, we describe patients' experiences of surviving OHCA. By using a phenomenological approach, we focus on how OHCA influences patients' well-being over time. Nine survivors were interviewed. Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is described as a sudden and elusive threat, an awakening in perplexity, and the memory gap as a loss of coherence. Survival means a search for coherence with distressing and joyful understanding, as well as existential insecurity exposed by feelings of vulnerability. Well-being is found through a sense of coherence and meaning in life. The study findings show survivors' emotional needs and a potential for prehospital emergency personnel to support them as they try to make sense of what has happened to them.

Key Words: emergency medical services • heart health • illness and disease • acute • quality of life • phenomenology

Qualitative Health Research, Vol. 19, No. 3, 323-338 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1049732309331866
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A. Bremer, K. Dahlberg, and L. Sandman
Experiencing Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest: Significant Others' Lifeworld Perspective
Qual Health Res, October 1, 2009; 19(10): 1407 - 1420.
[Abstract] [PDF]