Patient perceptions of the importance of maintaining preoperative NPO status

Although traditional "NPO (nothing by mouth) after midnight" policies are being liberalized, noncompliance with NPO status remains a threat to patient safety and may result in delays of elective surgical procedures, decrease the efficiency of the ambulatory surgery setting, and waste healthcare dollars. The purpose of the present study was to examine how comprehensive NPO instructions affected group differences in knowledge and perceptions of importance of maintaining preoperative NPO status. In this posttest-only study, 122 ambulatory surgery patients were randomly assigned to the experimental group (n = 66), who received comprehensive NPO instructions, or the control group (n = 56), who received the usual NPO instructions. Outcome measures were taken on the day of surgery via a questionnaire developed by the investigator. Outcome differences were examined, and group means were compared using analyses of variance and covariance. Although findings revealed comparable compliance rates between the groups and no significant differences when knowledge about NPO status was compared, a significant difference was found when perception of importance of maintaining NPO status was compared. Findings from the study suggest that providing patients with the rationale for adhering to preoperative NPO orders can significantly increase the patient's perception of the importance of maintaining preoperative NPO status.