Nurse preoperative guidance: patients’ recollections

Abstract

The experience of having surgery is a cause of stress and anxiety to patients and their families. The preoperative guidance given by nurses lessens the insecurity of these patients. Our objective was to find out the patients’ opinions about the guidance offered by nurses in the preoperative stage in relation to facing the perioperative period. This is in the form of descriptive exploratory research with a qualitative approach. In the period from March to April of 2008, nine hospitalized patients in the postoperative abdominal surgery stage were interviewed. The interviews were recorded and transcribed for content analysis. Three categories were established: I don’t remember right now, but it was a good thing…, when we registered that the patients had only a vague recollection of what they had been told; with constant stimulus being necessary to obtain answers. The second category: The doctor also talked to me…, highlights the patients’ recollection of the doctor’s guidance, which emphasizes the power of the doctor’s words. The third category, They took great care of me, I didn’t need a thing, is related to the fact that the guidance was helpful facing the situation, even though they did not feel completely at ease in giving an opinion or making a suggestion about what could be changed. The research proposes a discussion and review of this nursing activity.