Psycho-Social Outcomes Following Emergency Laparotomy

An emergency laparotomy (EmLap) is a life-saving operation; but the aftermath for those that do survive can be lifechanging. Each year, in excess of 25,000 EmLaps are performed in UK. A national effort, through the National Emergency Laparotomy Audit (NELA), has managed to improve peri-operative care, and reduce 30 day mortality from 1 in 4 to less than 1 in 10. Whilst this reduction should be commended, it also means that more patients are surviving with some form of new infirmity. This infirmity may be short-lived and reversible in some, and yet others may transition into a permanent chronic disease state. The impact of EmLap on those individuals that "do not fully recover" is far-reaching and often interlinked, covering biological, social and psychological domains. This makes it difficult to describe the true problem, i.e. holistic morbidity and suggest an intervention to improve it. The primary aim of this work is to describe the holistic morbidity of EmLap throughout the first year of a patient's recovery.