53. Men living with coronary heart disease: A narrative study (166)

Helen Hand, Lecturer, Faculty of Health and Wellbeing, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, United Kingdom
h.e.hand@sheffield.ac.uk

Abstract:

Background:

CHD represents the most common cause of premature death in the UK, causing around 105,000 deaths each year. Although adult death rates from CHD have fallen by over forty four percent in the last ten years, an estimated 2.6 million people in the UK, are still living day-to-day with CHD (BHF 2007). The health care system is being increasingly compelled to take account of patients’ and caregivers’ personal experiences if it is to provide effective care, sensitive to individual needs (DOH 1997).

Aim:

To explore men’s experience of living with CHD from the perspective of people facing CABG, with a view to informing the development of supportive care strategies in this client group.

Methods:

This qualitative longitudinal narrative design used unstructured in-depth interviews over a period of one year, with nine men recruited from the coronary artery by-pass graft (CABG) waiting list at one Northern England hospital.

Results:

Analysis of shared experiences identified:
• Times when participants felt ‘abandoned’ and unsupported
• Participants were ill-equipped to effectively self-manage CHD
• A perceived lack of partnership in day-to-day disease management
• Urealistic expectations of CABG surgery
• Personality traits that hindered moving on following CABG
• The emergence of three types of lives following CABG: interrupted, suspended, and reinvented

Discussion and conclusion:

If ‘self-management’ is to be the key to attaining long-term quality of life and independence with chronic illness (DH 2006), health professionals need t:
• Develop a partnership approach to CHD management that empowers the individual whilst acknowledging the shifting nature of decision making
• Provide systematic education on the correct use of GTN
• encourage realistic expectations of CABG surgery
• Provide flexible, accessible, needs based, appropriately timed interventions along the illness trajectory
• Develop individually tailored chronic illness self-management plans to facilitate moving on following CABG

Biography:

Helen Hand 1988 Qualified as an RGN eventually specialising, firstly in the intensive care unit and then the coronary care unit. 1998 Lecturer / practitioner post jointly with Bassetlaw NHS Trust and the University of Sheffield. 2000 Lecturer, University of Sheffield. 2006 Transferred to Sheffield Hallam University (seconded back to University of Sheffield) I currently teach mainly medicine and research to student nurses. My post-basic commitment includes the mentor preparation programme. I am about to submit my PhD entitled ‘Men living with CHD: a narrative study supervised by Professor Mike Nolan, which is the basis of the poster presentation. Alongside lecturing, I have maintained my clinical skills working in a GUM clinic each week