The Importance of nurse-led preoperative education on the anxiety of patients after coronary artery bypass grafting

Abstract

The aim of this study was to assess the importance of nurse-led preoperative education for helping patients to reduce their anxiety after coronary artery bypass grafting. Methods. The interventional study was performed at the Hospital of Lithuanian University of Health Sciences Kauno klinikos, the Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Surgery and the Department of Cardiology. The data were collected between June 2019 and February 2020. The intervention group (n=109) received nurse-led preoperative education 1–3 days before the surgery. The patients in the control group (n=109) received ordinary education provided by the staff of the hospital: surgeons, anaesthesiologists and nurses. The patients’ anxiety level was assessed with Cardiac Anxiety Questionnaire (CAQ) developed by Eifert (2000). Results. Postoperative CAQ-Fear, CAQ-Avoidance, CAQ-Attention and CAQ-Total Score decreased significantly in the patients of the intervention group who participated in preoperative nurse-led education (P<0.05). There was no significant decrease of scores of any anxiety subscale in the patients of the control group (P>0.05); moreover, the scores of anxiety subscale CAQAttention significantly increased after surgery among the control group patients (P=0.007). [...].