"Like a rainy weather inside of me": Qualitative content analysis of telephone consultations concerning back pain preceding out-of-hospital cardiac arrest

Introduction: Cardiac arrest patients presenting with back pain are at risk of not receiving the appropriate help when calling emergency medical services. In telephone consultations regarding patients with back pain pre-ceding an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, we investigated how communication between caller and call-taker influenced the call-taker's interpretation of back pain descriptions and decision-making about choice of response.Method: The study was conducted using 20 recorded phone calls from 17 patients who contacted the Copenhagen Emergency Medical Services (Denmark) reporting back pain up to 24 hours before an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Qualitative content analysis was applied.Results: Two main categories emerged: (1) reasons, including subcategories: reported conditions, descriptions of conditions, patient's interpretation of condition and patient's own remedial actions; and (2) considerations, including subcategories: assessment of the severity, call-taker's interpretation of the condition, arguments for chosen response and conditions not facilitating further communication by the call-taker.Conclusion: In telephone consultations regarding patients with back pain preceding an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest the communication was influenced by the communicative preconditions of the call-taker. Communication in consultations where ambulances were not dispatched was characterized by complex descriptions of symptoms not easily fitting into the health system's interpretations of conditions warranting an urgent response.