EXPRESSION OF LEARNING NEEDS AND TEACHING PROVIDED DURING POST ABDOMINAL HYSTERECTOMY CONVALESCENCE.
Contributors: University of Pennsylvania.
Published: 1995
Number of pages: 144
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Health Sciences, Medicine and Surgery.; Health Sciences, Obstetrics and Gynecology.; Education, Health.
Description: The purpose of this study was to determine the learning needs expressed by women who experienced an abdominal hysterectomy and the teaching provided these women by advanced practice nurses. The women were followed from one to two days post-surgery until eight weeks post-hospital discharge. The data for this study were collected as part of a larger research program grant on early discharge and nurse specialist care at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing from 1988 to 1991. One of the three original studies investigated Early Discharge and Nurse Specialist Follow up Care of Women Having Hysterectomies. The women were followed by advanced practices nurses and received hospital visits, home visits, and telephone contacts. An integration of Orem's Self-Care Framework and Knowles' Andragogy Theory of adult learning was used to guide this study.

The sample consisted of 56 nursing process recordings kept for the early discharge patients. The secondary analysis of content included the process recordings of women who had a hysterectomy for benign or pre-cancerous reasons. The process recordings were coded for expressed learning needs, and teaching provided by the advanced practice nurses. There were 1597 learning needs identified. To summarize, the learning needs were placed into 83 lower level categories according to their similarities and differences. The lower level categories were further collapsed into 14 higher level categories. The most frequent higher level learning needs were issues surrounding the women's incision and women's activity level. Teaching was provided 6014 times. The teaching provided was placed into 95 lower level categories and further collapsed into 17 higher level categories. The most frequently taught items were issues surrounding activity levels, the role of the advance practice nurse in the study, and women's incisions. When possible, examination of paired learning needs categories and teaching provided categories were conducted. In 57 of the 65 learning/teaching pairs relationships were found to be non-significant (p $<$.05). These findings suggest that the teaching was provided at the time the learning needs occurred.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-06, Section: B, page: 3126.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, 1995.

School code: 0175.