Aims: This study is a meta-ethnography of nurses' experiences with telephone triage and advice and factors that facilitate or impede their decision-making process.
Background: Telephone triage and advice services are a rapidly expanding development in health care. Unlike traditional forms of nursing practice, telenurses offer triage recommendations and advice to the general public without visual cues.
Data sources: Published qualitative research on telephone triage and advice were sought from interdisciplinary research databases (1980-2008) and bibliographical reviews of retrieved studies.
Review methods: Our systematic search identified 16 relevant studies. Two researchers independently reviewed, critically appraised, and extracted key themes and concepts from each study. We followed techniques of meta-ethnography to synthesize the findings, using both reciprocal and refutational translation to compare similar or contradictory findings, and a line-of-arguments synthesis.
Results: We identified five major themes that highlight common issues and concerns experienced by telenurses: gaining and maintaining skills, autonomy, new work environment, holistic assessment, and stress and pressure. A line-of-arguments synthesis produced a three-stage model that describes the decision-making process used by telenurses and highlights how assessments largely depend on the ability to 'build a picture' of the patient and the presenting health issue.
Conclusion: Telenurses experience a range of common concerns and issues which either impede or facilitate the decision-making process. Although 'building a picture' of the patient is key to making assessments over the telephone, final triage decisions are influenced by balancing the conflicting demands of being both carer and gatekeeper to limited healthcare services.