Structured postoperative teaching and knowledge and compliance of patients who had coronary artery bypass surgery

A convenience sample of two comparable groups of patients who had coronary artery bypass surgery was studied to assess the effectiveness of a structured teaching guide used by nurses in educating the patient and his family about normal postoperative recovery. Preoperative health assessments were performed on 64 patients, and risk factors for heart disease were identified for each individual. One group was educated by an unstructured method; the other group received structured teaching with the use of a guide developed by nurses experienced in recovery after open heart surgery. Knowledge was assessed before instituting teaching and on discharge from the hospital. All patients were again assessed 6 weeks after discharge for postoperative health and compliance with their health risk factors identified earlier. An analysis of variance with repeated measures revealed that both groups had higher total knowledge scores after surgery. Most postoperative health behaviors (angina, smoking, hypertension, and diet) were comparable between groups. However, those patients who had structured postoperative teaching walked more blocks after surgery (mean = 15.61) than those patients who received routine teaching (mean = 7.00) (p less than 0.005), although these two groups were not equivalent before surgery. In addition, the patients who had structured teaching had higher total compliance scores (mean = 86.8) than those who had unstructured teaching (mean = 79.5) (p less than 0.05). Therefore although structured teaching may not have initially affected patient's knowledge, it may have had an impact on their compliance with postoperative health behaviors.