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Interviewing Adults: Communication at the Front Line

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Encyclopedia of Security and Emergency Management

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Definition

Interviewing adults refers to the use of research-based methods for obtaining reliable information needed for critical decision-making during the course of an emergency.

Introduction

The key to ensuring successful outcomes within the emergency services, be it a fire, trauma, or criminal in nature, is in part reliant on gaining reliable information (Nunan et al. 2016). Reliable information may in turn aid effective, critical decision-making throughout an emergency (Alison et al. 2015). However, obtaining such information is a complex task, especially at the front line where the event is often surrounded by chaos and confusion and where there are limited fast-time resources (Dalton et al. 2018). Thus, the information-gathering task is confounded by numerous factors, but in the current entry, we will focus on three key areas of research: (i) the source of the information (i.e., is it a witness, victim, or emergency services personnel themselves?); (ii) the types of questions...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Criminal Justice Studies, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK

    R. Milne, A. Shawyer, G. Dalton, B. May & J. Nunan

  2. University of Derby, Derby, UK

    R. Bull

Authors
  1. R. Milne
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  2. A. Shawyer
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  3. G. Dalton
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  4. B. May
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  5. J. Nunan
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  6. R. Bull
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to R. Milne .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept of Security, Fire & Emergency Mgmt, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, USA

    Lauren R. Shapiro

  2. Dept. of Security, Fire & Emergency Mgmt, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, NY, USA

    Marie-Helen Maras

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Milne, R., Shawyer, A., Dalton, G., May, B., Nunan, J., Bull, R. (2020). Interviewing Adults: Communication at the Front Line. In: Shapiro, L., Maras, MH. (eds) Encyclopedia of Security and Emergency Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69891-5_160-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69891-5_160-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-69891-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-69891-5

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