Patient perspectives of healthcare associated infection: "You don't know what impacts it will have on your life"

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Healthcare associated infections (HAIs) are not present on admission but contracted while a patient is undergoing hospital treatment. While the prevalence of HAIs, their causes and treatments have been researched in varied contexts to date, the patients' perspectives of contracting and living with the consequences of HAI remains under-researched. OBJECTIVE: To explore the patients' experience of having an HAI. METHODS: We conducted a qualitative phenomenological study which drew on data from semi-structured interviews to explore the lived experiences of patients who had recently contracted an HAI while in hospital. Participants were recruited from two Australian hospitals during 2019 and 2021. Telephone interviews were conducted with ten participants by two research team members and transcripts from these interviews were qualitatively analysed using a thematic coding process to identify the patients' perspectives of contracting an HAI. RESULTS: The participants had a range of different HAIs. The participants described how the experience of having an HAI can be very isolating and distressing from the patient perspective, with life-long implications. This contributes to our understanding of the way in which patients are impacted emotionally and mentally as a result of contracting an HAI. CONCLUSION: There is a need for improved, person-centred communication about the source, treatment, and prognosis of HAIs. The findings from our study indicate the importance of considering patients' voices in their own health care.