Patient Experience with Amputation or Limb Loss: Literature Review

BackgroundsAmputation which is the removal of body parts, the reality faced by patients who must be amputated raises various responses ranging from rejection to acceptance. The process of each patient is certainly different according to the experience experienced by each patient. MethodsThis literature review uses articles published from 2018-2022 with source from databased ScienceDirect, Pubmed, Scopus, Sage Journals, EBSCO-Host, BMC Journal, Springer Link, Taylor and Francis, and ProQuest. The keywords used are patient experience, perspectives of patients, amputations, limb loss, low extremity amputation, qualitative, qualitative study. Article selection follows "PRISMA" flow. ResultsThis systematic review have a total of 6 articles meet the criteria for analysis. Respondents involved in this qualitative research amounted to 109 respondents who had undergone the amputation process. There are several themes that are used to explore the patients experience, the themes used are divided into several aspects in the form of aspects of physical changes, aspects of psychological changes, and also aspects of social adaptation that patients must go through after undergoing the amputation process. ConclusionThrough a qualitative study, it was found that the average patient expressed feelings of worry, fear, anxiety, feeling useless, no longer liking his body, feeling lost in self-confidence, and no longer wanting to interact socially because of the negative response from the surrounding environment towards the patients.