Foreign movement in one’s own body: Patients’ experiences of being awake while treated with catheter ablation—a phenomenological study

PURPOSE: To address the consequences of living with supraventricular tachycardia and to improve the quality of treatment, there is a need to highlight patient experiences of treatment with catheter ablation. Therefore, the aim was to describe the phenomenon of catheter ablation, as it is experienced by patients being treated awake. METHODS: A descriptive design was applied based on a reflective lifeworld research founded on phenomenological epistemology. Interviews were conducted between December 2021 and Mars 2022 with seven women and five men, three to twelve months after they underwent catheter ablation. RESULTS: Patients undergoing catheter ablation while awake during treatment, which includes experiences of relying on others expertise, being actively passive, and striving to be cured. It entails experiences of having a foreign object moving in one’s body and heart and can be endured through strategies of mainly shifted one’s mental focus. CONCLUSIONS: The effort of undergoing a catheter ablation procedure is worthwhile as the confirmation of a physical curable condition that opens a future with possibilities instead of the obstacle in daily life that tachycardia entails. For the patients, an informative and caring conversation was needed that would have provided the support they lacked before and during the ablation.