https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1204-0598
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ABSTRACT
Purpose
To address the consequences of living with supraventricular tachycardia and to improve the quality of treatment, there is a need to highlight patient experiences of treatment with catheter ablation. Therefore, the aim was to describe the phenomenon of catheter ablation, as it is experienced by patients being treated awake.
Methods
A descriptive design was applied based on a reflective lifeworld research founded on phenomenological epistemology. Interviews were conducted between December 2021 and Mars 2022 with seven women and five men, three to twelve months after they underwent catheter ablation.
Results
Patients undergoing catheter ablation while awake during treatment, which includes experiences of relying on others expertise, being actively passive, and striving to be cured. It entails experiences of having a foreign object moving in one’s body and heart and can be endured through strategies of mainly shifted one’s mental focus.
Conclusions
The effort of undergoing a catheter ablation procedure is worthwhile as the confirmation of a physical curable condition that opens a future with possibilities instead of the obstacle in daily life that tachycardia entails. For the patients, an informative and caring conversation was needed that would have provided the support they lacked before and during the ablation.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to the participants in this study, who openly shared their thoughts and experiences.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Ann-Katrin Nordblom
Ann-Katrin Nordblom, RN, MScN, is a cardiac nurse at the Department of Cardiology, Skaraborg Hospital of Skövde, Sweden, working in the cardiac team at the Electrophysiology Lab., and PhD-student in Caring Science, with two publications.
Anna Kjellsdotter
Anna Kjellsdotter since 2012. Associate professor, Research leader and Manager of Innovation at FoUUI at Skaraborg Hospital of Skövde, Sweden, with about 20 publications.
Gabriella Norberg Boysen
Gabriella Norberg Boysen, prehospital emergency nurse for more than 20 years. PhD in Caring Science since 2017, and senior lecture at the University of Borås, Sweden, with 11 publications.
Mia Berglund
Mia Berglund since 2011. Associate Professor at University of Skövde, Sweden, with more than 30 publications. She received Excellence in Teaching Award 2022.