Nurse-related factors in the delivery of preoperative patient education

This article aimed to explore the factors relating to nurses themselves that influence the delivery of preoperative patient education in everyday surgical clinical contexts at one large general adult teaching hospital in Ireland.

As landmark studies of preoperative education undertaken in the UK in the 1970s identified the superiority of structured programmes of patient education over and above 'regular' preoperative care, there have been many intervention/outcome experimental studies carried out in this area. However, there has been little interpretative work conducted that explores the regular, or 'usual' preoperative education given to patients in everyday surgical units. Methods. A sample of 12 experienced surgical nurses was selected and each participant was interviewed in depth. Data were analysed using a qualitative strategy resembling grounded theory.

Findings indicate that preoperative education was variously interpreted by participants, and participants' accounts suggested that different understandings and practices by nurses resulted in patients receiving different levels of care. In addition, diverse levels of knowledge and experience of individual nurses resulted in unevenness in the type of preoperative education that patients received. A number of participants advocated a more formal method of preparation for nurses in the area of preoperative education. Finally, in some surgical areas, specialist nurses worked side-by-side with regular ward nurses and their input in preoperative education was largely seen by participants in a positive way, particularly in view of the structural constraints that ward nurses faced.

We conclude that nurse-related factors in preoperative education do not arise in a vaccum, but rather are related to the wider organizational practices and culture. The difficulties with preoperative education identified in data may be addressed through organizational investment in preoperative education.

This paper produces evidence for nurses and clinical nurse managers about how nurse-related factors impede preoperative education, and may provide a starting point for how to begin to address obstacles to better preoperative care.