Abstract
The ambulance service has been developed from a transport organisation to one of pre-hospital care, a part of the Swedish public health care system. Today, the same demands can be raised on ambulance staff as on other medical services regarding security, quality and competence. The aim of this study was to illuminate the ambulance staff's psychosocial working conditions and the importance of nursing from the ambulance staff's perspective. A questionnaire was mailed to 9 ambulance stations in Sweden, this comprised 30 questions, 23 of which were multiple-choice statements and the remainder open-ended questions. 67 Ambulance personnel replied to the questionnaire. The analysis of the findings showed that the ambulance staff considered basic care, i.e. just being present and holding the patient's hands as very important. The close contact and support from their colleagues developed a security in the job which gave the ambulance staff energy to continue working in a psychologically and physically stressful job. Despite this finding, 82 % of the respondents would like professional debriefing. The respondents considered that they gave equal care to patients regardless of age and sex but this was not the case with patients who were influenced by drugs.