Exploring Electrical Injury Survivors and Caregivers' Experiences with Recovery: A Qualitative Study

Research Objectives To explore the lived experiences of EI survivors and their caregivers with recovery and social support engagement. We aim to understand how EI survivors and their caregivers adjust to and cope with daily life after an EI and the role that social support has played in their recovery process. Design A qualitative descriptive approach was used to gain insight into EI survivors and caregivers’ experiences with social support throughout recovery after an EI. We conducted one-on-one, semi-structured interviews with survivors and their caregivers. Following Braun and Clarke's thematic analysis, we analyzed the data to find repeated patterns of meaning and themes. Setting We included survivors from the inpatient and outpatient burn programs at Sunnybrook and St. John's Rehab if they had an EI in the past 20 years. Participants In total, we included 13 EI survivors (mean age 54, male n=12, female n=1) and 4 caregivers (mean age 60, female n=4). Interventions N/A. Main Outcome Measures N/A. Results Preliminary themes identified include: 1) the importance of family peer support in enhancing EI survivors’ ability to cope and improving general outlook for both survivors and caregivers; 2) healthcare professionals (HCP) lack of knowledge of social support needs after EI; and 3) survivors feel that psychosocial follow-up after EI is poor. Conclusions Family and peers are important sources of support and the availability of support positively influences recovery. While accessing support is limited by HCP lack of knowledge of support needs, it can be enabled with psychosocial follow-ups. Such findings can inform interventions designed to augment social support to improve the recovery process and optimize the health of EI survivors and caregivers. EI survivors and caregivers are an understudied population that experience devastating consequences as a result of injury. Shedding light on their experiences is the first step in developing the knowledge needed for healthcare professionals to provide timely, inclusive, and holistic support services. Author(s) Disclosures None.