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Abstract Background Frailty is an important issue in cardiovascular surgery. To provide individualised care to the needs of frail patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, it is needed to determine the patients' surgical experiences. Qualitative studies examining the experiences of frail patients undergoing surgery are limited (1,2). In addition, there is no study examining the surgical experiences of frail patients undergoing CABG surgery in our country. Purpose To examine frail patients' lived experiences of CABG surgery in early period. Methods In this qualitative study, a phenomenological approach was used. The study was conducted between 28.06.2021 and 18.02.2022 at the cardiovascular surgery department of a training and research hospital in Turkey. The study sample consisted of 14 patients who had CABG surgery and were determined to be frail in the preoperative period using the Modified Fried Frailty Index. Criterion sampling method, one of the purposeful sampling methods, was used in sample selection. The "Semi-Structured Interview Form" was used to collect the data. Data collection was carried out in the early pre-discharge period. The interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. The data were analysed using the MAXQDA 2020 program. Content analysis and thematic analysis were used in the analysis of the data. Results The mean age of the patients was 65.6±8.84 (min:45-max:76) years. Nine of the patients were female, 13 were married, 13 were primary school graduates, and 9 were lived together with a partner. Thirteen of the patients had comorbid diseases, 12 had hypertension and 11 had diabetes mellitus. The mean length of hospital stay was 19.79 days±5.59 and the mean length of stay in the intensive care unit was 8.64 days±4.46 days. 13 patients had postoperative complications. Four main themes were identified: i) "problems", ii) "coping", iii) "perceptions toward CABG" and iv) "expectations", in addition to nine sub-themes related to these main themes. Pain, postoperative complications such as bleeding, shortness of breath, infection, fear and anxiety were the most frequently expressed problems. The importance of support from health care professionals and family members was emphasised the most in terms of coping. In the theme of perception toward surgery, the surgical process being more difficult than expected and postoperative relief were the most mentioned issues. When the expectations of patients were examined, the importance of effective communication during the surgical process was highlighted the most. Conclusions Frail patients had both positive and negative experiences in the postoperative period, highlighting the significance of effective nursing care. The individualised patient-specific nursing care was required. Cardiovascular surgery nurses should evaluate patients in terms of frailty and consider the frailty status of patients while providing care.
Arikan et al. (Mon,) studied this question.