Abdominal Surgery, Pain and Anxiety: Preoperative Nursing Intervention

Abdominal Surgery, Pain and Anxiety: Preoperative Nursing Intervention



Abdominal Surgery, Pain and Anxiety: Preoperative Nursing Intervention

Introduction

The study “Abdominal Surgery, Pain and Anxiety: Preoperative Nursing Intervention” by Li-Ying Lin, Ruey-Hsia Wang showed that the anxiety and pain attitude scores for both groups at pretest. After the nursing interventions, pain and anxiety scores both showed significant difference. Nursing interventions included repositioning, deep breathing/coughing, and emotional outbreaks were lower in the experimental group. The experimental group got out of bed 1.5 days earlier than the control group (Zulu et al, 2007).

Context of the paper

Title

I believe that this title is appropriate because this paper reports a study examining the effects of preoperative nursing intervention for pain on abdominal surgery preoperative anxiety and attitude to pain, and postoperative pain.

Research Question

Unrelieved postoperative pain has a negative impact on physiological and psychological functions, and delays postoperative recovery and discharge from hospital

Preoperative teaching has a positive effect on patients' preoperative knowledge, attitude and anxiety.

Preoperative nursing intervention is basic and important to the relief of postoperative pain.



Research method

Research design

In this article authors created an experimental research study that tested a hypothesis that stated patients who receive preoperative nursing intervention for pain will have lower levels of preoperative anxiety, a more positive preoperative pain attitude, and lower levels of postoperative pain than those who do not receive such intervention. This is a point of reference in clinical research for historical reference (Li-Ying et al, 2005).

Treatment of Intervention

Groups received routine care, including preoperative physical preparation and education about postoperative breathing and coughing. Those in the experimental group also received the preoperative nursing intervention for pain, whereas the control group did not. To achieve consistency in the interventions, each preoperative nursing intervention for pain was implemented by the same researcher (Tribes et al, 2004).

Independent variable

Control groups are independent variable

Dependant variable

Experimental study

Data collected

A structured questionnaire including an anxiety scale, pain attitude scale, and Brief Pain Inventory was used to assess the results.

External validity of study

Five experts evaluated all scales for content relevance and appropriateness, and some items were revised according to their suggestions. Five patients who met the sampling criteria were invited to assess the clarity of the items, and unclear or ambiguous wording was modified based on their responses (Price et al, 2004). To avoid bias caused by internal validity during data collection, two nurses from another unit of the study hospital were trained as data collectors.

Study participants

The participants in this study were drawn from patients undergoing abdominal surgery in one hospital, which may limit the applicability of the findings to different kinds of operative patients or to different hospitals (Lai 2005). Further research aimed at broadening the applicability of this preoperative nursing intervention is warranted. Because of the limitation of sample size, we did not examine the effects of the intervention by gender or type of surgery. Research with a more comprehensive design should take up these issues in the future (Devine et al, ...