Objective:

To explore prehospital emergency nursing and to compare the case-mix attended with prehospital medical teams.

Methods:

Cross-sectional study, including patients from Málaga District attended by a prehospital nurse (2012 – 2016), and by prehospital medical teams (2012).

Main variables:

priority, cause of the demand, nursing diagnosis, medication and referral. Descriptive and multiple inferencial analyses.

Results:

The nurse attended 2253 patients. Medical teams attended 21226 patients, and 34.8% presented similar pathologies. Case-mix: Cervical-back-sciatica pain (12.6%), dizziness/vertigo (9.6%), no urgent pathology (9.2%), etc. 63.9% of patients needed medication: Diazepam (19.3%), metoclopramida (13.6%), metamizol (12.5%), etc. Management of medication or healthcare devices, and problem coping were usually associated to assistance demands. 92% of demands were resolved in situ.

Conclusions:

The emergency nurse turns out to be an efficient choice for sharing prehospital demands, even with nursing prescription not yet legalized.