THR patient’s emotional and physical assessment after early hospital discharge

Abstract

Shorter hospitalisation is a strategy that healthcare services have adopted to solve the problem of high demand for hospitalisation under conditions of insufficient resources. Early discharge demands patients to self-manage their recovery at home, while recovery is still perceived a clinician’s responsibility. This often results in an extra emotional and psychological load on patients. Due to the lack of measurements to include the emotional and psychological state of a patient in the home context, clinicians often oversee these issues in the evaluation of patients' recovery during hospital visits. This paper outlines the development of esther 1.0, an electronic tool based on Experience Sampling Method, that encourages senior patients of Total Hip Replacement (THR) to self-report their experiences related to their perceived physical and emotional state during the first weeks of recovery at home. This paper describes the emotional assessment of a THR patient and reflects on the value of this knowledge to develop professional support beyond the clinical recovery.