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Methods: The study of was carried out in university hospital’s cardiovascular surgery clinic in Ankara/Turkey between 01.04.2014- 30.07.2014. 97 patients with open-heart surgery volunteered to take part in the study. Data was collected with three forms. The first one was included questions related with socio-demographic characteristic and level of daily living activities of patients, second form was included questions related with problems encountered after discharge and third form was self-care agency scale (min35-max140, high scores indicate better self care ability). Data was collected from patients after one month later from the discharge when they came to hospital for follow up appointment. Patients were informed about the study on discharge and informed again on their follow up appointment once more. After appointment researchers interviewed each patient in a private room on the outpatient clinic with face-to-face. Data was analyzed with percentage, Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal-Wallis H-test.
Results: The mean age of patients was 60 ± 13.9; 58.8% of them were male, 93.8% of them married, 74.2% of them living in the province,67% of them unemployed and 49.5% of them living with spouse . It was found that a month after open-heart surgery 50% of patients become dependent on housework, cleaning, shopping, transportation, food preparation and needed assistance with washing and dressing. Respiratory distress, weakness and fatigue, sleep problems, anxiety about activity, emotional changes such as easily cry /offense, constipation, loss of appetite were found the most encountered problems. Taking drugs (90%), resting and avoidance of activity (80%) and seeking the medical supervision were the most preferred approaches to handle the problems. The average self-care agency scale score of patients was found as 102.03 ± 18:21 which indicate that their self-care level was above intermediate level. Statistically significant relationship was found between self-care agency scale score and education, income, employment status, living place (p <0.05).
Conclusion: Patients encountered at least one problem related with activities of daily living and become dependent on others. Their patients’ self-care level was found above intermediate and they stated that they do not know how to deal with the problems after discharge.