Table 3.

Codes relating to uncertainty theme

Subtheme	Code	Interviews (n)	Frequency (n)
Uncertain diagnosis	Few pre-hospital diagnostic aids for major bleeding	10	31
	Haemorrhage mimics can confuse diagnosis	8	22
	Difficult to prognosticate	8	19
	Need to compile information and make a global assessment	8	9
	Differentiating minor bleeding from major bleeding	7	13
	Haemodynamic assessment maybe misleading	6	17
	Fallibility of haemodynamic parameters	6	16
	Clinical examination is not 100% accurate	6	7
	Individual patient variability	5	15
	Clinical unknowns relating to the patient (eg, extent of their injury)	4	12
Uncertain intervention effect	Immediate effect of a given intervention
	Benefit of transfusion (includes clotting, oxygen delivery, perfusion, preload)	9	52
	Weighing up benefit and harm	9	16
	Risks of transfusion (includes dilution, increased BP, immunological effects, BBV, VTE, metabolic)	5	17
	Recognition of threshold variation between clinicians when to start transfusion	5	7
	Future effect of a given intervention
	Transfusion mitigates future pathological states (eg, TIC/MODS)	6	8
	Blood transfusion improves patient’s physiological state in moderate bleeding patients	3	3
	No perceived effect of a given intervention
	Rapid transport to hospital is key	4	6

‘Interviews’ refers to the number of interviews in which a code was identified. ‘Frequency’ refers to a count of each code in every interview.

BBV, bloodborne virus; MODS, multiple organ dysfunction syndrome; TIC, trauma-induced coagulopathy; VTE, venous thromboembolism.