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03SCIENCE, PRACTICE AND EDUCATION DOI: 10.35279/jowm2022.23.03.03 Members’ experiences of Lindsay Leg Clubs ® : A thematic metasynthesis of published narratives in qualitative research Freya J Crispin , 5th Year MBBCh student, Cardiff University Samantha Holloway , Cardiff University School of Medicine, Centre for Medical Education, College of Biomedical and Life Sciences Dr Anna M Galazka , PhD, Lecturer in Management, Employment and Organisation, Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Aberconway Building, Colum Road, CF103EU Cardiff Correspondence: Freya J Crispin, crispinf@cardiff.ac.uk Conflict of interest: None Keywords: Lindsay Leg Clubs, members, mixed methods, narratives, patient experience, qualitative, systematic review, thematic metasynthesis ABSTRACT Introduction This paper systematically reviews, evaluates and the- matically synthesises evidence on members’ experi- ences with Lindsay Leg Clubs. These are community institutions based on a psycho-social model of care that provides social support and education for people suffering from, or at risk of, chronic leg disease. Methodology A systematic review using the SPIDER search tool was applied to three databases and identified 190 papers. After applying the inclusion criteria, 25 publications containing narrative evidence of club members’ experiences were included in the review and subjected to a thematic analysis based on in- terpretative phenomenological analysis. Results The themes capturing collective members’ experi- ence were: social support, nurses’ care and exper- tise, empowerment and education, quality of life, accessibility, comparison to GP/community/hospital setting, volunteers, healing and pain, environment and atmosphere, relatability to other members and refreshments. Conclusion This is the first review of Leg Club members’ narra- tives based on published evidence. The data point- ed to their overall positive experiences. Additional sources of data, such as recorded videos, were not included, but it would be interesting to examine such media to build on the evidence. INTRODUCTION Chronic wounds have an adverse impact on people’s quality of life and increase the risk of mortality (1). Wounds in the lower limb that do not heal within a year, or three months after appropriate treatment, are defined as chronic leg ulcers (2, 3). Features such as pain; reduced mobility; sleep disturbance; time lost to caring for the ulcer, including time off work, feelings of social distress, depression, anger, loss of confidence and fear, are prominent in those with leg ulcers (4–6). The overall cure rate with conven- tional treatment is under 50%, and there is still a high recurrence rate (7). Left untreated, these chronic wounds can progress, which puts people at risk of infections and thus sepsis, and even limb amputa- tion. The number of amputations associated with chronic ulcers rose by 8.4% in just eight years from 2005-2013, though many of these were preventable (8). Although diabetes is the leading cause of death 150 JOURNAL OF WOUND MANAGEMENT OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE EUROPEAN WOUND MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATIONPage 2