Meaning of Receiving Artificial Nutritional Support in People in the Postoperative Period of Abdominal Surgery

Abstract

Objective. This work sought to describe the meaningof receiving artificial nutritional support in people in thepostoperative period of abdominal surgery. Methods.This was a qualitative study of grounded theory, followingthe guidelines by Corbin and Strauss. The informationwas collected through 26 in-depth interviews with 21participants, interned in a tier III health care hospital inthe city of Tunja, Colombia. Results. The study describesfour categories, which account for the way in which theperson experiences physical, physiological, emotional,and social changes when receiving artificial nutritionalsupport. The categories include stopping eating andbecoming artificially fed, decreasing the ability to moveto recover movement, experiencing the difficulty of having artificial nutritional support, and reaching the disease to transform life. The dataanalysis shows that the basic surgical pathology and the artificial nutritional supportare sudden events that fragment the daily life of the person. These individualsdemand the mobilization of religious, family, and social resources to strengthen theperson’s internal and external environment and, thus, achieve the health situation. Conclusions. The analysis of the meanings shows how the person reflects andinterprets the reality of receiving artificial nutritional support, an event that hasimplicit physical discomfort, emotional changes, and physical appearance, whichare determinants in the behavior and practice of artificial nutrition. However,artificial nutritional support becomes for the person an alternative to live and recoverthe state of health.