Paramedic Science Dissertation Ideas - Calling All Student Paras!

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Paramedic Science Dissertation Idea(1)

‘Is Humour An Effective Stress Remedy For Front-line Staff?’

A Paramedic Science Dissertation idea that will offer an alternative to conventional topics. This research piece will necessitate the use of primary data which you will likely need to collect from using survey tools such as SurveyMonkey. The objective for your research will be to determine if there are any interconnections between the use of humour and reported stress

Do people that score highly on stress related questions register negative responses to humour? Identification of paradigms in your results will allow you to test hypothesises and determine if advice encouraging humour relayed in basic training holds empirically for your sample. It is important to establish ethical considerations for your study and also acknowledge the limitations of your primary data

Your results, regardless of how compelling they may be, cannot be generalised for all Paramedics.Rather, they will provide evidence to refute or underpin a predetermined view

Relevant Paramedic Science Theory: PTSD, Advanced data analysis

Suggested Sources:

Dean, R.A.K. and J.E. Major. 2008. From critical care to comfort care: the sustaining value of humour. Journal of Clinical Nursing

Downe, P.J. 1999. Laughing when it hurts: humour and violence in the lives of Costa Rican prostitutes. Women’s Studies International Forum

Rowe, A. and C. Regehr. 2010. Whatever gets you through today: an examination of cynical humor among emergency service professionals. Journal of Loss and Trauma 15(5)

Paramedic Science Dissertation Idea(2)

‘Does Evidence Support Paramedics Using Therapeutic Hypothermia?’

Innovation in resuscitation protocol could be transformational to post-arrest survival rates. Targeted temperature treatment is believed to reduce cerebral damage where ischemia is a factor as a cooler brain is less metabolically active. A cooler brain requires less oxygen to function. Free radicals and thrombin that can damage brain tissue are also reduced under targeted temperature conditions

The alleged neuroprotective properties of Therapeutic Hypothermia make this an excellent candidate for trial in front line resuscitation treatment. If Therapeutic Hypothermia is so effective, then why is its application not widespread? How strong is the evidence to suggest its effects to improving mortality rates?

Reviewing previous literature that refutes and endorses the use of Therapeutic Hypothermia should be considered in your dissertation. It will be important to use empirical evidence and scrutinize the conditions that the analysis was conducted under and to also ensure that both positive and negative cases are discussed prior to reaching a conclusion

Suggested Sources:

LeHigh Valley Health Network, (2014), Therapeutic Hypothermia for treating sudden cardiac arrest patients. Available HERE

Castelblanco, F. (2011) Effects of Early Initiation of Induced Therapeutic Hypothermia. Available HERE

Paramedic Science Dissertation Idea(3)

‘Cessation of resuscitation in blunt force trauma cardiac arrest after five minutes – does evidence support this protocol?’

The Joint Royal Colleges Ambulance Liaison Committee recommends that resuscitate efforts can be stopped after just five minutes of resuscitation in blunt force trauma cardiac arrest victims. Does this protocol warrant review? Should the clinician not have more discretion to review each incident on a case-by-case basis?

This is significant given that individuals in cardiac arrest from penetrating trauma are afforded 20 minutes of resuscitation prior to recognition of life extinct being declared. This proposition will likely be a qualitative study of previous literature and empirical publications. Central to this research is the paper entitled “A Patient With Blunt Trauma and Cardiac Arrest Arriving Pulseless at the Emergency Department; is that Enough Reason to Stop Resuscitation? Review of Literature and Case Report” (See link under “Suggested Sources”)

This paper is significant given the documentation of a blunt force trauma victim that fully recovered from cardiac arrest. A further consideration should be the recent innovations within the resuscitation techniques deployed by Ambulance staff and how this could render past assumptions of the prognosis of blunt force trauma cardiac arrest patients redundant

Relevant Paramedic Theory: Blunt Traumatic Arrest

Suggested Sources:

Resuscitation Council (UK), Prehospital Resuscitation. Available HERE

Jahromi, A. Northcutt, A. Youssef, A. (2013). “A Patient With Blunt Trauma and Cardiac Arrest Arriving Pulseless at the Emergency Department; is that Enough Reason to Stop Resuscitation? Review of Literature and Case Report”. Available HERE

Paramedic Science Dissertation Idea(4)

‘Is the routine application of cervical collars in vertebrae immobilisation medically justified?’

‘Is the routine application of cervical collars in vertebrae immobilisation medically justified?’
Current JRCALC guidelines are to immobilise patients complaining of central spinal pain (amongst several other indicators). Several studies have attempted to review whether this could be impairing patient welfare in the prehospital setting. This research proposal will be to extend from past literature to review any new evidence that may challenge previous assumptions

Contingent on the balance of evidence from review of existing publications on this field of study, your dissertation should make recommendations of suitable alternatives to the cervical collar (c-collar) application. If your evidence is seen to gravitate towards the use of c-collars then can you suggest refinements of current protocol in order to countervail some of the existing drawbacks that scholars have proposed in the use of c-collars

A noteworthy consideration is to not refer to vertebrae immobilisation as “c-spine immobilisation” as this only refers to a finite section of the vertebrae. Whereas immobilisation could be indicated from a thoracic injury, for example

Revert back to our website shortly as we are working on building our Paramedic dissertation topic ideas to help with your studies. Wise Owl Research is well connected in with Ambulance personnel in the south of England and several of London Ambulance Service and South East Coast Ambulance paramedics write essays for our clients

Relevant Paramedic Theory: Vertebrae Immobilisation Protocol

Suggested Sources:

Abram, S., and Bulstrode, C. (2010). Routine spinal immobilization in trauma patients: what are the advantages and disadvantages?

Deasy, C., and Cameron, P. (2011). Routine application of cervical collars—what is the evidence?

Bohlman, H.H. (1979). Acute fractures and dislocations of the cervical spine. An analysis of three hundred hospitalized patients and review of the literature

Paramedic Science Dissertation Idea(5)

'Does evidence from impact apnoea patients necessitate review of resuscitation practices for traumatic cardiac arrests?'

A topic that is seldom mentioned during conventional ALS training but was a referenced concept in literature from the early 1980s, impact apnoea is the cessation of breathing post cephalic injury. This Paramedic Science dissertation idea centralised on the very prominent issue of Cardiac dysfunction after traumatic brain injury

Animal trials for the correlation between cephalic trauma and apnoea suggests that there is an association between cessation of respiratory effort following cephalic injury. This has been reinforced by the findings in prehospital setting whereby patients with cephalic trauma experience apnoea as a result of the trauma

Empirical studies suggest that the effect of no external ventilation administration results in periods of apnoea long enough that they lead to cardiovascular collapse and subsequent death. This warrants investigation given the current guidelines employed by the Ambulance Service in which blunt trauma arrest patients are afforded less resuscitative effort than standard cardiac arrest patients

This dissertation proposal is non-conventional and also could be pioneering to the Ambulance Service if sufficient evidence is found to change the current practice for patients who are apnoeic following trauma

Relevant Economic Theory: Impact Apneoa

Suggested Sources:

Atkinson, JL., Anderson, RE. Murray, MJ. (1998). The early critical phase of severe head injury: importance of apnea and dysfunctional respiration

Gennarelli, T. (1983) Head injury in man and experimental animals: clinical aspects. Acta Neurochir Suppl (Wien)

Prathep, S. et al. (2014) Preliminary report on cardiac dysfunction after isolated traumatic brain injury. Available HERE

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Paramedic Science Dissertation Idea(6)

'Could more be done to countervail the unnecessary utilisation of Emergency Ambulances? An empirical review'

in terms of service provision reform, the effective triage of 999 calls is one of the most relevant to the present-day Ambulance Service

The paper will analyse whether more emphasis on clinicians interposing within the control room will lead to better and efficient allocation of trust resources. The logic being that they will be able to use their clinical knowledge to recognise situations where emergency intervention is not warranted, in turn, allowing assets to be dispatched to more appropriate calls

This proposal will make use of official published UK data to review the extent of calls that are filtered by the current triage system. A comprehensive analysis of previous data can be employed to identify any paradigms that can be used to construct appropriate recommendations for service reform. Given the time series of the data, hypothesis testing by use of T-tests or analysis of variance (ANOVA) can be considered – especially when samples of data are analysed straddling the inception of the 111 service. This can be reinforced graphically using statistical plots to illustrate any trends that become apparent

Relevant Paramedic Science Theory: Service Improvement

Suggested Sources:

NHS England [online] Available HERE

Paramedic Science Dissertation Idea(7)

'Could more be done to countervail the unnecessary utilisation of Emergency Ambulances? An empirical review'

This Paramedic dissertation proposal is a contentious notion that questions whether there is active discrimination by front line staff against regular callers. The majority of Ambulance stations will have a collection of regular callers who request Ambulances for trivial reasons. Often these individuals know the triage system very well and know what key answers to give the 999 operator in order to be allocated an Ambulance

The individuals often have mental health issues of some description and are very well known to Hospital and Ambulance staff. This dissertation will require a survey of front line staff to ascertain whether any paradigms exist to suggest that regular callers are treated differently based upon their reputations. It will be important to ensure that your survey results are anonymous given the sensitive nature of potential results

If your findings show that these individuals are discriminated against, how can this be circumvented? Can you make recommendations on changes to training or policy?

Relevant Paramedic Science Theory: Patient Profiling

Suggested Sources:

Fellow, D. Fletcher, D. (2016) “Overview of Frequent Callers of London Ambulance Services”. Available HERE

Monteith, R. (n.d) “Building Strengths Rather Than Correcting Weaknesses – 12 Month Report”. Available HERE

Paramedic Science Dissertation Idea(8)

'Exploring Literature about Paramedic's view on the acceptability and efficacy of using restrains on mental health patients'

Restraint is considered as a necessary recourse when managing unstable mental health patients. Whether this be from substance misuse or exacerbation of a preexisting condition such as psychosis or dementia, some situations will warrant the paramedic to take firm action for to safeguard the well being of all parties present

This paramedic dissertation will explore the current literature regarding the perceptions and experiences of registered paramedics regarding the efficacy, acceptability and effectiveness of using different methods of restraints in the provision of treatment of mental health patients

The research will require the identification of both positive and negative perceptions of paramedics on the acceptability and effectiveness of different methods of restraints. You will also need to determine the most common causes of applying restraint which will then be used to provide practical recommendations

Relevant Paramedic Science Theory: Mental Capacity and legal restraint

Suggested Sources:

Ang, S.Y., Aloweni, F.A.B., Perera, K., Wee, S.L., Manickam, A., Lee, J.H.M., Haridas, D., Shamsudin, H.F. and Chan, J.K. (2015). Physical restraints among the elderly in the acute care setting: Prevalence, complications and its association with patients’ characteristics. Proceedings of Singapore Healthcare

Berg, J., Kaltiala-Heino, R. and Valimaki, M. (2011). Management of aggressive behaviour among adolescents in forensic units: A four-country perspective. Journal of Psychiatric & Mental Health Nursing

Paramedic Science Dissertation Idea(9)

Ethical considerations on the impact of defensive practice on patient care

This Paramedic Science dissertation examines the ethical consideration of the impact of defensive practice in patient care. It looks specifically at what impact ethical considerations have on defensive practice in patient care

The reference to patient care is deemed to denote the medical profession in general and therefore broadly interpreted to encompass all areas. Therefore, it is not restricted and will, for example, consider the social work professions as well as, for example, consider general practitioners

Defensive practice is viewed as behaviour stemming from a cautious approach towards medical care in order to avoid the ultimate fear of wrongdoing, which could result in litigation. Ethical considerations are viewed as points to be taken into account, ‘relating to beliefs about what is morally right and wrong: ethical and legal issues’

The General Medical Council have admitted that the fear of litigation has caused medicine to become more defensive. There is therefore arguably a direct link between legal considerations and defensive practice and therefore this dissertation seeks to examine this. It has also been argued that fault-based systems encourage behaviour which is overly-defensive, therefore, if fault can be termed an ethical consideration, it could be argued that ethical considerations have a significant impact on defensive practice in patient care

The dissertation will require analysis of primary data to establish the presence and extend of defensive care by means of surveying front-line Ambulance staff. A survey platform such as SurveyMonkey will be the most efficient way of procuring data from participants

Relevant Paramedic Science Theory: Negligence and Litigation

Suggested Sources:

Powers M, Barton A and Jackson B, Clinical Negligence (Bloomsbury Publishing, Fifth edition, 2015)

Sumption L, ‘Abolishing personal injuries law – a project’ (2018) 34 Professional Negligence

Symon A, ‘Litigation and defensive clinical practice: quantifying the problem’ (2000) 16 Midwifery Journal 8

Whittaker A and Havard T, ‘Defensive Practice as ‘Fear-Based’ Practice: Social Work’s Open Secret?’ (2016) 46 British Journal of Social Work 1158

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