A life-breaking event: early experiences of the consequences of a hip fracture for elderly people

Objective: To explore and describe the consequences of an acute hip fracture as experienced by home-dwelling elderly people shortly after discharge from hospital. Design: Semi-structured interviews using the phenomenographic method. Subjects and setting: Eighteen subjects were interviewed in their own homes one month after discharge. Results: The interviewees described experiences of changes in their relation to the body, themselves, to others and to their whole life situation. These experiences were described as being limited in movement, having lost confidence in the body, becoming humble and grateful, respecting oneself and one's own needs, becoming more dependent on others, gaining more human contact and being treated in a friendly way by others, being secluded and trapped at home, feeling old, closer to death and having lost their zest for life, and taking one day at a time and being uncertain about the future. Conclusion: Experienced consequences of a hip fracture were multidimensional and involved dramatic changes in the interviewees' life situation, including existential thoughts and reappraisal of the years of life that remained. The results indicate that the fracture seemed not only to break the bone but also to cause social and existential cracks, as experienced in the early phase after the injury.