The Experience of Living with a CardioMEMSTM
Date
2022-01-13
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Abstract
Background: Heart failure is a serious health concern and places significant demands on the
Canadian health care system. One method of follow-up monitoring is the CardioMEMSTM
implant, which measures a patient’s pulmonary artery pressures. Healthcare professionals can
use information from the device to make recommendations for the management of heart failure.
Research published on CardioMEMSTM focuses predominantly on decreasing admission rates,
emergency visits, and length of stay in hospital. Living with the CardioMEMSTM implant
requires patients to be directly involved in data transmission, communicating with healthcare
professionals, and titrating medications from their home. There is a paucity of information on the
patient experience of living with a CardioMEMSTM device.
Research Question: What is it like to live with a CardioMEMSTM device?
Method: This was an interpretive description study. Six semi-structured individual interviews
were conducted with people living with the CardioMEMSTM implant in the Calgary area. Data
were analyzed using interpretive description methodology to find both patterns and variances
within the data.
Findings: The central found was support which was substantiated by the themes of autonomy,
improved health, and convenience. Variations to the central theme were a sense of decreased
control, anticipatory loss, anxiety and guilt, and inconvenience associated with using the device.
Discussion: Findings can be used by healthcare professionals and candidates for the device to
further understand the patient experience of living with a CardioMEMSTM device.
Description
Keywords
cardiology, heart failure, interpretive description, telemonitoring, CardioMEMS, nursing
Citation
Diakow, R. (2022). The Experience of Living with a CardioMEMSTM (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.)