| Learning Objective #1: Identify what is expected knowledge of ambulatory surgical patients | |||
| Learning Objective #2: Identify how ambulatory surgical patient’s expectations of knowledge are fulfilled |
Material and methods: The sample consisted of 145 ambulatory surgery patients at one University Hospital in Finland. The data were collected during six months in 2004 by structured questionnaires before and after patients' educational sessions. These questionnaires consisted of biophysiological, functional, experiential, ethical, social and financial dimensions of expected and received knowledge and the answering scale was from 1 (totally disagree) to 4 (totally agree).
Results: About half of the patients (53 %) were female and most of patients (69 %) were aged 35 – 65 years. Most of the patients (44 %) had at least 9 years of primary education. About half of the patients (51 %) had been in ambulatory surgery previously.
Patients' expected knowledge was greater (mean 3.37, sd 0.57) than the knowledge they received (mean 2.86, sd 0.73, p < 0.0001) in every dimensions (biophysiological, functional, experiential, ethical, social and financial). Patients expected most knowledge related to biophysiological issues (mean 3.61, sd 0.46) and they also received this knowledge most (mean 3.56, sd 0.48). Althought they received less than they expected the difference was not significant. In other dimensions of knowledge the differences from expected to received knowledge were statistically significant.
Conclusions: The results indicate problems in several areas of patient education. Since patient education is seen as an empowering intervention, educational sessions should focus on patients' actual expectations rather than nurses' assumptions.