Patient readmission for orthopaedic surgical site infection: an hermeneutic phenomenological approach.

AIM AND OBJECTIVE: To explore the individual experience of being readmitted for surgical site infection resulting from orthopaedic surgery.

BACKGROUND: Surgical site infection has been a cause of concern worldwide and contributes to the greatest number of hospital readmission occurrences. Health professionals must understand the meaning of these readmissions for the individual, as an understanding of these exclusive experiences improves the quality of surgical care.

DESIGN: Qualitative research based on the existential phenomenology of Martin Heidegger.

METHOD: Eleven individuals who were readmitted because of surgical site infection participated in the study. The testimonials were obtained over an 11-month period in 2014-2015 based on the following leading question: What has it been like for you to be readmitted because of orthopaedic surgical site infection? The phenomenological analysis identified the sentiment units of the testimonials and their interrelation, revealing the meanings.

RESULTS: The revealed contents were fear and insecurity of the unknown, frustration, and the sense of time passing them by and being unable to live their lives. The individuals felt neglected, and they experienced their social relationality as impaired and sometimes approaching a breakdown. The patients connected with God as an attempt to avoid complications and death.

CONCLUSION: We urge healthcare professionals to deepen their knowledge of the dimensions of care by developing competencies that consider the subjectivity of experiences of the health-disease process. When the only listening that takes place is qualified listening, the professional's attitudes compromise his or her ability to provide true care, which transcends the knowledge of doing and reaches the knowledge of doing with sensitivity.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: Nursing care requires an attitude that considers the patient as more than a carrier of illness and should not be limited to what is described and prescribed, although the latter cannot be excluded in an organisational point of view.