This site offers resources co-designed by amputees, healthcare professionals involved in their care, charity representatives and researchers to support the psychological preparation of patients and their families before amputation surgery, and help healthcare staff to better support patients before this procedure.
Why is preparation for amputation important?
Having an amputation is a life-changing event, so it is important you feel prepared for what happens during and after your surgery. People who feel more prepared before their surgery often have better outcomes, like feeling less anxiety and better recovery afterwards.
Our Resources
We have resources which were co-designed by a group of amputees and healthcare professionals at two UK hospitals alongside researchers from De Montfort University, Leicester. We developed resources for patients, families and carers, and healthcare professionals to help best support those undergoing an amputation. These resources are designed to help those undergoing amputation psychologically, emotionally and physically get ready for amputation, and give information on how to support patients if you are a family member, carer or healthcare professional.
These resources were co-designed through a research project at De Montfort University, Leicester which you can read about here.
What is it co-design?
Co-design is a way of working whereby service-users -for instance, patients- and service-providers -for instance, healthcare staff- collaborate in partnership to create or improve existing services. In a co-design process, participants identify together existing problems, design and choose the best solutions, and work together to adjust and improve these solutions.
The PreAmp study’s support resources were created through a type of co-design called Experienced-Based Co-Design (EBCD). More than on needs and views, EBCD focuses on creating environments and experiences that work for everyone on the cognitive and emotional level. If you want to learn more about EBCD and how this participatory method can be used to improve healthcare services you can click here.