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The purpose of this study was from a Swedish perspective to map experts' opinions on theoretical statements of essential collaboration activities for management of mining injury incidents.

A Delphi technique was performed, asking opinions from experts in iterative rounds to generate understanding and form consensus on group opinion around multi-agency management. The experts were personnel from emergency medical service, rescue service and mine industry, all with operative command positions.

Three iterative rounds were performed. The first round was conducted as a workshop to collect opinions about the most important multi-agency collaboration activities to optimize victim's outcome from an injury incident in an underground mine. This resulted in 63 statements and additional three were added during the second round. The statements were divided into one trajectory and seventh time phases and comprised, e.g. early alarm routines, support of early life-saving interventions, relevant resources and equipment for the assignment and command and control center and functions with predefined action plans for response. It also comprised shared and communicated decisions about each agency's responsibility and safety. All statements reached consensus among the experts in Round 3.

The experts included in this study seem to be adequate but there could be other experts and different statements that other researchers might consider.

These statements could be used to evaluate collaboration in major incidents exercises. The statements can also be quality indicators for reporting results from multi-agency management.

This paper contributes to the research field of collaboration and joint practices between and among personnel involved in rescue operations.

Major incidents in road tunnels remain a collaborative challenge for the emergency services (fire and rescue service, police and ambulance), emergency dispatch centres (EDCs) and infrastructure owners. The aim of this paper is to investigate how collaborative partners to the ambulance services perceive the rescue effort and to identify factors that may influence its efficiency.

Focus group and individual interviews were conducted with 19 participants who were infrastructure owners or had operational or tactical responsibilities with the emergency services or EDCs in two regions in Sweden with multiple road tunnels. The collected data were analysed using qualitative content analysis.

Three main categories described efficiency factors during and after an incident: (1) coordinating the initial information (using a shared terminology), (2) achieving situational awareness (identifying those persons in need) and (3) lessons (not) learnt (lack of joint tactical plans and exercises). The emerging theme was access, assess and evaluate.

The findings suggest that establishing national policies and collaborative forums might yield more efficiently managed rescue efforts in road tunnel incidents in Sweden and other countries with similar organisational structures.

This study offers new insights on interoperability during responses to complex underground incidents.

The purpose of this paper is to examine emergency medical service (EMS) personnel’s perceptions and experiences of managing underground mining injury incidents.

In total, 13 EMS personnel were interviewed according to a semi-structured interview guide. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

An underground mining environment was described as unfamiliar and unsafe and, with no guidelines for operational actions in an extreme environment, such as underground mines, the EMS personnel were uncertain of their role. They therefore became passive and relied on the rescue service and mining company during a major incident. However, the medical care was not considered to be different from any other prehospital care, although a mining environment would make the situation more difficult and it would take longer for the mine workers to be placed under definitive care.

This study complements earlier studies by examining the EMS personnel’s perceptions and experiences of major incidents.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors that influence the probability that staff will commit acts of inadequate care, abuse, and neglect.

A cross-sectional survey study was carried out in one county in the middle of Norway (Sør-Trøndelag). Random sampling, stratified by size of nursing homes, and location (rural or urban areas), was used to select a variety of nursing homes from a total population of 55 nursing homes. All staff working in 16 nursing homes working were asked to participate in the study. A response rate of 79 per cent was achieved (n=616).

Findings reveal that location and size of the nursing home, age of the staff, education level, job satisfaction, resident aggression, and conflicts between residents and staff predict inadequate care, abuse, and neglect. The most consistent findings are that resident aggression increases the risk for all three types of inadequate care, and that conflicts predict different types of inadequate care depending on whether the conflicts are related to direct care-giving activities or not.

Nursing home care is an important part of care for the elderly, and should be characterized by good-quality services. The relation between inadequate care and resident aggression, conflicts, and other factors shown in this study points to the relevance of further improvements in nursing home practices to minimize the occurrence of episodes of inadequate care, abuse, and neglect.

This study investigated the relationships between 11 specific factors and different types of inadequate care in a nursing home context.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse factors influencing perceptions of preparedness in the response to terrorist attacks of operational personnel in Swedish emergency organizations.

Data were collected using a questionnaire distributed to operational personnel from the police, rescue and ambulance services in eight Swedish counties; 864 responses were received and analysed.

Three aspects of the perception of preparedness for terrorist attacks among Swedish emergency responders were studied: willingness to respond; level of confidence with tasks; and estimated management capability. Factors which positively influenced these perceptions were male sex, training in first aid and dealing with mass casualty incidents, terrorism-related management training (MT), table-top simulations, participation in functional exercises, and access to personal protective equipment (PPE); work experience was inversely related. Occupation in police or rescue services was positively associated with willingness to respond whereas occupation within the emergency medical services was positively associated with estimated management capability.

These findings show that terrorism-related MT and access to PPE increase the perceptions of preparedness for terrorism among the emergency services, aiding judgements about investments in preparedness by crisis management planners.

Limited research in disaster management and hazard preparedness has been conducted in a European context, especially regarding terrorism. Little is known about aspects of preparedness for terrorism in Sweden, particularly from the perspective of the emergency responders.