• Gary Blau, Susan Chapman, Ed Boyer, Richard Flanagan, Than Lam, and Christopher Monos.
• Human Resource Management Department, Fox School of Business, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA. gblau@temple.edu
• J Allied Health. 2012 Jan 1; 41 (3): e69-72.

AbstractThe Haddon Matrix has been cited in a recent review of patient safety as a useful framework for understanding Emergency Medical Services (EMS) provider and patient injury prevention and safety during ambulance response and transport. The research goal of this study was to test part of the Haddon matrix, specifically variables within the pre-event host and event host cells, for explaining three multi-item ambulance-related safety outcomes: i.e., anticipated use of safety equipment, securing the patient, and securing the equipment. Complete study data were available for 648 EMS professionals who responded to the 2004 Longitudinal Emergency Medical Technician Attributes and Demographic Study (LEADS) survey. Overall very modest results were found. Specific findings indicated that EMS professionals with: lower perceived health, greater intrinsic satisfaction, more time in the patient compartment of an ambulance, and greater seatbelt use had higher anticipated use of ambulance safety equipment. For the patient being secured in an ambulance, the extremely high mean/low score variance resulted in only extrinsic satisfaction having a significant positive association. Finally, female EMS professionals, those more extrinsically satisfied, not being involved in a prior ambulance accident, and greater seatbelt use were related to higher frequency of securing ambulance equipment during patient transport.

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