Accounting for assessments of mental illness in paramedic practice: A new theoretical framework
This is the third paper in a series that heralds a study that examines paramedic accounts and constructs of judgment and decision-making (JDM) of mental health and mental illness. This paper will overview an innovative theoretical framework for conducting a discourse-historical case study of paramedic judgment and decision-making of mental health and mental illness using ethnographic and ethnomethodological research methods. The review of the existing research and literature suggests an insufficiency of current theoretical and methodological frameworks to address the research problem and questions of this study. Little examination of judgment in mental illness and health has occurred, which is discussed in an earlier paper.1 Those studies, and the theoretical frameworks used, are insufficient in addressing key aspects of inquiry in judgment and decision-making, particularly in the paramedic ecology. The theoretical framework described here seeks to begin addressing this insufficiency in a new and innovative way.