Aim
To explore patients’ with complex aortic diseases lived experiences of recovery between and after staged endovascular aortic repair (EVAR) procedures, including adjunctive open surgery.
Design
Qualitative descriptive phenomenological design, applying person‐centred care and lifeworld‐led health care.
Methods
Patients operated on in a staged fashion between 2012–2017 were invited to participate. Six participants underwent in‐depth interviews 1–5 years postoperatively. The interviews were analysed using descriptive phenomenological method.
Findings
The essence of the patients’ experiences was described as: a necessary, overwhelming, hard, and prolonged process with life changing consequences. Between the operations: expected tiredness where life goes on as usual and insufficient time for recovery. Short‐term after all operations: overwhelming tiredness, pain and complications, mostly from neurological deficits. Losing ‘yourself’ and struggling to manage daily life one day to another. Long‐term after all operations: gradually recovering back to ‘yourself’ and having to accept life with permanent setbacks and limitations.
Conclusion
Patients with complex aortic diseases struggle with physical and psychological setbacks, continuing years after their operations. There is a need to prospectively assess different aspects of these patients’ recovery, identify those with impaired recovery and establish preventive and supporting strategies.
Impact
Patients’ experience of recovery after staged aortic repair has not previously been investigated. The findings indicate that these patients struggle with various physical and psychological setbacks continuing years after their operations. These results will inform further research on this group of patients and guide healthcare professionals in the care of these patients in their transition back to recovery.
AortaScanÒ BVI 9600, Auxo Medical, Richmond, VA, USA {3}). This group included 44 patients (46%) with an AAA of >3cm. As control, all patients were subjected to a conventional ultrasound of the abdominal aorta. We used SPSS 23.0 to perform statistical analysis of the data and determine specificity, sensitivity, positive and negative predictive value (PPV and NPV, respectively), and Kappa value (strength of agreement between methods). Results-Analysis of our results yielded a sensitivity of 90% and specificity of 98% for the Aortascan as compared to conventional ultrasound. The strength of agreement (Kappa) was 0.88. PPV and NPV were 0.98 and 0.90. Conclusion-Screening programs must balance the costs of screening with clinical benefit. The Aortascan BVI 9600 can lower costs and increase ease of use. We found that this device is reliable in screening for AAA in patients with a WHC < 115. These new findings supplement previous reports which postulated that additional research is necessary to determine the suitability of hand-held screening devices for AAA screening [4,5].
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