Abstract
The information patients receive prior to a hip arthroplasty influences considerably how they feel before surgery and affects their rehabilitation and recovery afterwards. The aim of this study was to illuminate everyday activities that were experienced as being a problem before the operation, the patient's expectations prior to a total hip arthroplasty, describe the post surgical result, as well as focusing on how women respectively men describe their situations. Patient interviews were carried out (n=8) about one week before and five months after the operation. A qualitative content analysis was used to interpret the text. The result shows that the informants had considerable problems in carrying out everyday activities prior to the operation, i.e. they described feelings of frustration and being unable to carry out everyday activities independently had a negative mental impact. It appeared that they had high expectations of full recovery after the operation. After surgery the informants were more satisfied and had recovered the capacity to carry out some everyday activities. A few, however still had problems with pain. It also emerged that some patients were of the opinion that they had not been given adequate information pre and post surgery. The result shows that there is a definite need for information material to be provided, in order to make it easier to prepare the patients adequately both pre and post surgery, as well as to shorten the period of time needed for care and treatment.