EXPERIENCES OF TAIWANESE PATIENTS DURING RECOVERY TRANSITION FROM CARDIAC SURGERY.
Contributors: University of California, San Francisco.
Published: 1994
Number of pages: 382
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Sociology, Individual and Family Studies.
Description: Patients' experiences with cardiac surgeries have been investigated in Western societies by researchers for years. However, there is little information about Taiwanese patients' experiences with cardiac surgery and the factors contributing to its impact on them. This longitudinal triangulated study explores Taiwanese patients' concerns, needs, expectations for recovery, perceptions of turning points, and nursing actions during their recovery transition from cardiac surgery (encompassing admission, ICU, and discharge-preparation transitions). It begins with the patients' stay in the cardiovascular floor unit before the surgery and ends on the day of discharge from the hospital.

Fifty-seven (31 men, 26 women) adult patients having cardiac surgery completed three interviews in this study in three hospitals in Taipei, Taiwan. Thirty subjects (15 men, 15 women) were theoretically sampled from these candidates. Qualitative data were obtained through semi-structured interviews carried out at admission, after being transferred from the ICU to the floor unit, and prior to discharge. The qualitative data were analyzed using grounded theory, qualitative content analysis, linking data, and constant comparison.

Findings center around five concepts: concerns, needs, cardiac surgery recovery expectations, turning points, and nursing actions during various recovery transitions. Three levels of concerns were identified: "caring about," "worrying about," and "having a fear of." Participants' needs include met, unmet and expectant needs. The coping strategies for unmet needs are also delineated. The expectations for cardiac surgery recovery transition encompass the definition, level, components, time frame, and context of cardiac surgery recovery. The coping strategies for facilitating the recovery include the use of person-focused effort, getting help from others, and using spiritual resources. Turning points including events, nursing actions and time are discussed in terms of preceding conditions, and health outcomes. The impact of participants' turning points experiences on their perceived degree of recovery, as well as the relationship between age, gender, and type of surgery and patients' turning-point experiences are examined using one-way ANOVA and chi$\sp2$ statistics, respectively. Perceptions of nursing actions during three cardiac surgery recovery transitions include nurses as recovery-preparers, recovery-facilitators, and recovery-hinderers; the bases for these perceptions; and implications for nursing profession are discussed.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-09, Section: B, page: 3822.

Thesis (D.N.S.)--UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO, 1994.

School code: 0034.