• Siri Idland, Kristin Häikiö, Jo Kramer-Johansen, and Magnus Hjortdahl.
• Department of Nursing and Health Promotion, Faculty of Health Sciences, Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway. siriid@oslomet.no.
• Scand J Trauma Resus. 2025 Jan 8; 33 (1): 55.

BackgroundDuring the recent years, emergency services in several countries have integrated video streaming into medical emergency calls, and research on the topic has gained increased focus. Video streaming during medical emergency calls may change dispatcher's perspective of the call and can be a helpful tool for supervising bystanders' first aid. Little research exists, however, about the caller's perspective of video streaming during a medical emergency call. With this study, we explore the caller's experiences with video streaming.MethodsThe study is a qualitative interview study. During a period of five weeks, we recruited respondents from the region of Oslo who had called the medical emergency number 113 and where video streaming had been used by the dispatcher during the call. We conducted 14 semi-structured individual interviews, in-person or digitally on Zoom/Teams, from October to December 2023. The interviews were transcribed verbatim, and we analyzed them drawing on Malterud's systematic text condensation.ResultsOur material was sorted into three category headings: Increased sense of safety, the unexpected option of video streaming, and emotional discomfort. Most respondents felt comforted knowing that the dispatcher could see and assess the situation visually. Several were also positively surprised that video streaming was an option during the call. Some respondents however felt increased stress during the call due to video streaming. Other respondents reflected on the societal taboo of filming ill or injured persons.ConclusionMost respondents experienced video streaming as a positive addition to the medical emergency call and felt comforted knowing that the dispatcher could see the situation. Knowledge of the integration between video streaming and basic communication in a call is nonetheless of great importance, as to not increase stress experienced by the caller. The dispatcher should be sensitive for how the caller will handle video streaming for each call.© 2025. The Author(s).

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