Subjective illness experiences of open-heart surgery patients in the Thai cultural context

Abstract

This qualitative case study investigates the illness experiences of patients who underwent open-heart surgery in the Thai cultural context. The study site was a central hospital in the Eastern region of Thailand. Data were primarily collected by narrative interviews with seven patients who had open-heart surgery under varied circumstances. Narrative analysis was used to analyze the data. The key findings are: 1) the subjective illness experiences of the patients before and during the open-heart surgery includes being on the edge between life and death, feeling like coming back from death, and attributing their surgery to misfortune; 2) the subjective illness experiences of the patients following the open-heart surgery includes increasing dependence on medical technology and feeling like a cyborg, a non-human or an animal. The patients’ subjective illness experiences reflect their perspectives on medical technology in open-heart surgery. The findings could contribute to medical personnel’s more holistic understanding of the lives of patients from scientific as well as cultural viewpoints and to the improvement of the mental and emotional health care for open-heart surgery patients.