Patient experiences of scoliosis surgery
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis Surgery: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Patient Experiences
IRAS ID
135653
Contact name
Jean Davison
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Teesside
Research summary
Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis is a three dimensional curvature of the spine that, as its name suggests, arises in adolescence for no known reason (Woolpert, 2006, p5). It can be disfiguring and severe curves require major surgery to stabilise and fuse the spine, straightening the curve and preventing it from worsening. Adolescence is a time of rapid physical and emotional change and this makes the condition even harder to cope with (Ahuja et al, 2010, p6). The researcher is a specialist nurse working with scoliosis patients. The research planned involves in-depth semi-structured interviews with 3-6 patients, aged 14-18, exploring their experience of scoliosis surgery. Purposive, intensive sampling will be used to identify young people from the specialist nurse's database who fulfill the inclusion criteria. The specialist nurse will write to all patients, or parents if the patient is under 16, who fulfil the criteria, asking if they would like to be involved, requesting a reply using a prepaid envelope, within 3 weeks. Patients/parents will then be contacted to obtain consent/assent, to comply with legal, ethical and moral guidelines. The interviews with the researcher and participant would be electronically recorded and held in a room in the outpatients' department on the day of the patients' clinic appointment, or at a time to suit the family. Data would be stored securely and only accessed by the researcher, to maintain confidentiality. The data would be analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis and the findings used to improve the support and information given to future patients. The findings would also be shared with partipants,other specialist nurses and healthcare professionals through a journal article and presentations at conferences/meetings.
REC name
North East - Newcastle & North Tyneside 1 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/NE/0132
Date of REC Opinion
28 May 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion