Paper
Wednesday, 19 July 2006
This presentation is part of : Adult Health
Day Surgery Patient: Ready for Decision-Making Concerning Care?
Kirsi Johansson, RN, MNSc, Sanna Salanterä, RN, PhD, Katja Heikkinen, RN, MNSc, Anne Kaljonen, MSocSci, Heli Virtanen, RN, MNSc, and Helena Leino-Kilpi, RN, PhD. Department of Nursing Science, University of Turku, Turku, Finland
Learning Objective #1: Identify what information and control preferences day surgery patients have.
Learning Objective #2: Identify the connection between information and control preferences of day surgery patients and received empowering knowledge.
Background and aim: Quite little is known about patient as a decision-makers concerning their care. The aim of this study was to evaluate the patients readiness for decision-making by analysing patients information and control preferences as well as adequacy of received empowering knowledge. Material and methods: This study consisted of adult day surgery patients (n=145, response rate 73 %) from one University hospital in Finland. The data was collected in two phases. Before surgery patients responded to the Kranz Health Opinion Survey (KHOS) about their information preferences (7 items) and control of care preferences (9 items), with a dichotomous scale yes-no and at discharge with a Received Knowledge of Hospital Patient (RKHP) questionnaire measuring empowering knowledge with 40 items, in a scale fully disagree (1) to fully agree (4). The results of these two phases were compared with each other. Results: Patients were not active information seekers (mean 3.18, sd 1.7 in scale 0-7) and neither did they want to control their care actively (mean 3.13, sd 2.35 in scale 0-9). Patients had received empowering knowledge mainly about biophysiological aspects of care (mean 3.56, sd 0.48) and least about financial aspects of care (mean 2.32, sd. 1.00). In respondents own opinion, patients with high information preferences did not receive enough empowering knowledge about social and financial issues. Also patients with high control preferences were not satisfied with the received empowering knowledge. Conclusions: Patients are not ready to take an active role in hospital and the empowering knowledge they received is not adequate. Patients need more support from health care personnel in order to be able to be active decision-makers in their own care.

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