An interventional study to provide telephone follow-up support to open-heart surgery patients during recovery

Over 500,000 open-heart (OH) surgery procedures are performed annually to treat cardiovascular and valvular heart disease. Despite the frequency of the procedure, patients face psychosocial and physical challenges that continue long after discharge. The research question for this study was: How does a telephone supportive intervention change anxiety, depression, expectations, and physical health status (PHS) in OH surgery patients?

A quasi-experimental, repeated measures design was used. The study included a supportive telephone intervention during recovery, and measured anxiety, depression, expectations, and physical health status (PHS) preoperatively (T1) and postoperatively, three days after discharge (T2), and at 4weeks (T3) and 3months (T4) after surgery. Participants (N=28) were randomly assigned to the control (n=13) or experimental group (n=15).

Mean scores for anxiety and depression were in the normal range across all data collection times. Scores for anxiety (p=.03) and PHS (p=.00) were statistically significant when examining how the scores changed over the four time periods. Main effect for group and interaction effects were not significant for any of the variables.

Limitations of this pilot study suggest the need to recruit a larger, heterogeneous sample from multiple sites. Future research including patients with a known history of anxiety and depression and developing a more evidence-based practice intervention are options to consider.