Key result
Pre-hospital ECPR creates emotional dualities, clinical challenges, and urgent training needs for participating nurses.
Why the study?
Pre-hospital ECPR requires coordinated work under severe time and environmental constraints, yet the lived experiences of nurses involved in this work remained poorly understood.
This qualitative study highlights how emotional strain, technical and environmental barriers, and inter-team coordination challenges intersect for nurses delivering pre-hospital ECPR, underscoring the need for targeted training, clearer protocols, and organizational support.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Nurse experiences in pre-hospital ECPR highlight support needs; hypothesis-generating and should not yet change practice.
Pre-hospital extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (ECPR) requires coordinated work under severe time and environmental constraints, yet nurses' lived experiences remain poorly understood. We explored how nurses experience this work, the challenges they encounter, and the support they consider necessary.We conducted a single-center descriptive phenomenological study in China. Purposive sampling recruited 14 emergency nurses and seven extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) specialist nurses. Data from face-to-face semi-structured interviews were analyzed using Colaizzi's seven-step phenomenological method.The 21 participants included 11 men and 10 women, with a mean age of 32.2 years (range 24-49). Three interrelated themes captured the experience: dual emotional experiences, challenges in the treatment process, and demands for improving treatment quality. Both professional groups contributed to all themes, while describing role-related emphases in scene-based emergency work and ECMO activation, equipment, and transport.The findings show how emotional strain, technical and organizational constraints, and perceived support needs intersect in one Chinese pre-hospital ECPR program. They support locally adapted training, team protocols, communication support, and staff well-being measures, while requiring cautious transfer to other settings.
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Cheng et al. (2026) studied Pre-hospital extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (ECPR) for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (n=21). Participation in pre-hospital extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (ECPR) was evaluated on Lived experiences, challenges, and perceived support needs of nurses participating in pre-hospital ECPR (qualitative themes via Colaizzi's phenomenological method). Pre-hospital ECPR participation among 21 nurses revealed three themes: dual emotional experiences, treatment challenges, and demands for improved training and system support.
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