Patient experience of neurological rehabilitation : a qualitative investigation

Objective: To understand the experiences of patients who had undergone neurologic rehabilitation. Design: An interpretative phenomenological analysis of semistructured interviews. Setting: Neurologic rehabilitation unit. Participants: A purposive convenience sample of 8 past patients. Interventions: Not applicable. Main Outcome Measure: Participants' reports of neurologic rehabilitation obtained via in-depth semistructured interviews. Results: Participants predominantly described positive experiences of rehabilitation. The superordinate theme person-centeredness was developed, which included 4 key themes: ownership, personal value, holistic approach, and therapeutic atmosphere. These reflected patients' perceptions of choice and control and feelings of personal respect and self-worth. These appeared to be promoted through the multidimensional benefits of the unit (eg, the understanding and friendly nature of staff and other patients, physical improvements, psychologic gains) as well as the unit's informal, relaxed environment. When present, these factors created a positive rehabilitation experience; when absent, a negative experience. Conclusions: These findings support those from other literature, which has identified person-centered care as a core element of successful rehabilitation and linked its absence to dissatisfaction with health care. This research has increased our understanding of patients' experience of neurologic rehabilitation, and could inform the development of a patient-centered assessment instrument for neurologic rehabilitation.