COVID-19 and Elective Spine Surgery: The Older Persons' Experience of Going It Alone

BACKGROUND: Older people with debilitating degenerative spine disease may benefit from surgery. However, recovery is described as a circuitous process. In general, they describe feeling powerless and receiving depersonalized care during hospitalization. Institution of hospital no-visitor policies to reduce COVID-19 spread may have caused additional negative consequences. The purpose of this secondary analysis was to understand experiences of older people who underwent spine surgery during early COVID-19. METHODS: Grounded theory guided this study of people 65 years or older undergoing elective spine surgery. Fourteen individuals were recruited for 2 in-depth interviews at 2 time points: T1 during hospitalization and T2, 1 to 3 months post discharge. All participants were affected by pandemic-imposed restrictions with 4 interviews at T1 with no visitors, 10 with a 1-visitor policy, and 6 interviews at T2 rehabilitation setting with no visitors. Discriminate sampling of data in which participants described their experiences with COVID-19 visitor restrictions was used. Open and axial coding (consistent with grounded theory) was used for data analysis. RESULTS: Three categories, worry and waiting , being alone , and being isolated , emerged from the data. Participants had delays ( waiting ) in getting their surgery scheduled, which produced worry that they would lose more function, become permanently disabled, have increased pain, and experience more complications such as falls. Participants described being alone during their hospital and rehabilitation recovery, without physical or emotional support from family and limited nursing staff contact. Being isolated often occurred from institution policy, restricting participants to their rooms leading to boredom and, for some, panic. CONCLUSIONS: Restricted access to family after spine surgery and during recovery resulted in emotional and physical burden for participants. Our findings support neuroscience nurses advocating for family/care partner integration into patient care delivery and investigation into the effect of system-level policies on patient care and outcomes.