Table 1.

Motivation to participate: key themes

Theme	Theme description	Illustrative quote(s)
Existing skills and interest	Volunteer CFRs may already have an interest in emergency care, be healthcare professionals or come with first aid training. CFR activity might also be a means by which a lay person with an interest in healthcare can pursue this interest.	CFR10: What we found is, it tends to be people who have some sort of a first aid background already that do it. So a lot of the people that joined us initially would have been the first aider in their rugby club, or the first aider in work, or something like that.
Giving back to the community	CFR was seen as a means of doing something good for and giving back to the ‘community’, thus resulting in personal satisfaction.	CFR9: Like that you’re there, you’re involved, giving something back, but it’s for free, it’s voluntary. It’s brilliant, you know.
Getting involved with the community	Participation in CFR could be a means of engaging with the community and making social contacts.	CFR6: I could never give back what I got out of the scheme, could never, after 12 years. I could never repay what I’ve got. I’ve met some of the… some of my closest friends now, through the scheme.
Saving a life	Participation in CFR offered the potential to ‘save a life’. This had inherent personal satisfaction.	CFR9: But for like the good ones where it’s an arrest you get there, you shock them, they’re back and discharged back home. Like there’s no better feeling than actually being involved with that.
Personal experience of OHCA	Personal experience of OHCA was a potential motivator. This could involve a situation where a volunteer had encountered OHCA and felt helpless/was left with a feeling of needing to act on this. It could also involve family members of OHCA victims.	CFR8: Well for me personally it was an incident I witnessed in a shopping centre… So unfortunately for the man, I suppose for everyone involved, the man died and passed away and I felt very helpless and I kept saying ‘God this is tragic, because nobody knew what to do. We just stood around.’ And I said ‘Look, I hope I’ll never feel like this again. I’m going to learn’. CFR1: A cohort have family issues, as in, something happened, or they have a child who maybe has cardiac problems, etcetera. That, I might come back to that later, that can be challenging.
‘Blue Light Junkies’	A minority of individuals can be motivated to participate based on a desire to engage with elements of OHCA response that are perceived as exciting or dramatic.	CFR2: Yeah, I think some people probably have the, what do we refer to it is. I can’t think actually the name we use, but basically they want to be Superman and they want to rush in and save people’s lives and they’re only dying to paint ‘battenbergs’ on the side of their cars and get blue lights – which obviously you’re not allowed to do – but there is that element, that some of the people in the room, it’s a real gung-ho macho kind of a thing.

CFR, community first responder; OHCA, out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.