"I Have Everything to Win and Nothing to Lose": Patient Experiences of Mobilization Out of Bed Immediately After Abdominal Surgery.
Anna Svensson-Raskh, Anna Schandl, Ulrika Holdar and 2 others
PMID 32941610WHAT IT FOUND
After immediate postoperative mobilization, patients described clearer thinking, easier breathing, and feeling safer when staff were competent and prepared them.
They wanted to get home, but some could not remember the mobilization and focused on cancer results.
Key findings
01Patients saw getting out of bed as a step toward regaining control and going home.
02Participants described sitting up as clearing their thinking and making breathing easier.
03Preparation about expected reactions and competent, present caregivers helped participants feel safe before and during mobilization.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
Participants came only from the mobilization groups of a randomized trial, so they may have been more positive about mobilization than patients who were not assigned to it. The study was designed to describe experiences in a Swedish cancer-surgery setting, not to generalize to all postoperative patients. The parent randomized trial data are described as unpublished in this paper, so details of the trial are not fully available here. Some participants could not remember being mobilized, so recall of the experience may be uncertain. Interviews were conducted soon after surgery, but timing varied, and anesthesia or recovery may have affected what patients remembered and reported.
Declared interests
The study was funded by the Swedish Research Council and the Doctoral School of Health and Care Sciences at the Karolinska Institute. The funders played no role in the design, conduct, or reporting of this study.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read these patient experiences as proof that immediate mobilization improves breathing or prevents complications. This paper reports how patients described the intervention, not measured clinical outcomes, and the participants were recruited from mobilization groups, so their views may reflect that context.