Effects of Nursing Intervention of Mutual Goal Setting on Gastrectomy Patients According to Health Locus of Control.

Based on King's goal attainment theory, this research deals with applying nursing intervention of mutual goal settings to gastrectomy patients. It tests the effects of nursing intervention, according to the patients' health locus of control, suggested as external boundary criteria for the theory by employing a quasi-experimental design which consists of a pretest-posttest non-equivalent control and experimental groups. The subjects of this research were 62 gastrectomy patients hospitalized at Y medical center and the experimental and control groups consisted of 31 subjects. The experimental group received nursing intervention at the mutual goal setting of 5 times from the day before the surgery to the 5th day after the surgery, while the control group received only routine nursing care. Recovery indicators of both groups were measured and compared. Measurement variables included patients' characteristics, health locus of control, forced vital capacity, forced expiratory volume in one second, peak expiratory flow, bowel movement recovery, mobility recovery, level of pain, patients' stress and patients' satisfaction. Data were analyzed using SPSS statistical package and the hypotheses were tested by ANOVA and ANCOVA. Results of the analyses are summarized as follows : 1) Internal health locus of control had higher effects of the nursing intervention of mutual goal setting than external health locus of control on pulmonary ventilatory functions of forced vital capacity, forced expiratory volume in one second, and peak expiratory flow. 2) There was no statistically significant difference in the effects of nursing intervention of mutual goal setting on the bowel movement recovery between the internal and external health locus of control. 3) There was no statistically significant difference in the effects of nursing intervention of mutual goal setting on the mobility recovery between the internal and external health locus of control. 4) There was no statistically significant difference in the effects of nursing intervention of mutual goal setting on the level of pain between the internal and external health locus of control. 5) There was no statistically significant difference in the effects of nursing intervention of mutual goal setting on the level of stress between the internal and external health locus of control. 6) There was a statistically significant difference in the effects of nursing intervention of mutual goal setting on the level of satisfaction with provision of nursing information between the internal and external health locus of control, and there was no statistically significant difference in the effects of nursing intervention of mutual goal setting on the level of satisfaction with outcome of nursing between the internal and external locus of control. On the basis of the research results, the following are recommended : 1) Repeated research on responses to health locus of control is necessary. 2) Not only the effectiveness of nursing intervention in acute recovery periods, but also the long term effects are to be investigated. 3) The development of instruments is needed to accurately measure mutual goal setting regarding postoperative deep breath, coughing, early ambulation, etc. so that the relationship among the postoperative recovery indicators may be explored. 4) It is required that an instrument be developed to measure perception which facilitates goal attainment in the interactive setting between patients and nurses.