Including the Family in Preoperative Teaching

Abstract

struction. Therefore, we designed an experiment to both replicate the finding that preoperative teaching of adult surgical patients would reduce anxiety, promote more positive attitudes, and hasten recovery and to extend previous research by testing the hypothesis that preoperative teaching that included the patient's family would produce even greater beneficial effects than the preoperative instruction given to the patient alone. Specific dependent variables included: (a) blind ratings by the evening charge nurse of patient's preoperative anxiety level, cooperativeness, ability to rest and relax, amount of information-seeking, and of the family's anxiety level; (b) blind postoperative ratings by the head nurse of patient's apprehensiveness, demandingness, and cooperation, and of the family's apprehensiveness; (c) number of days of hospitalization; (d) number of injectable narcotics; (e) time until patient got out of bed; and (f) number of complications.