Mechanically ventilated patients' experiences

Abstract

Introduction: Endotracheal or tracheotomy tube in mechanical ventilated patients disturb their verbal communications with others. Patients are frustrated in requesting their needs or have problems related to their artificial breathing. Therefore, their experiences can be investigated in order to provide them a better care by clinical personnel.

Methods: This was a qualitative phenomenological survey. The population studied included patients who were mechanically ventilated at least for one time and were more than 12 year-old. Data were collected in five months by deep interview and then, were analyzed by Colaizzi seven-stage method.

Results: The findings of research were classified in 139 codes and three categories as: 1) intrapersonal experiences, 2) extrapersonal experiences, and 3) interpersonal experiences

Conclusion: Mechanically ventilated patients tolerate a lot of stressors of that many are externally sustained. Better care reduces these stressors, and makes it easier for the patients to get along with the artificial breathing. Meanwhile, some pleasant experiences were mentioned by patients in this study.