AN EXPLORATION OF POSTDISCHARGE RECOVERY FROM CHOLECYSTECTOMY SURGERY.
Contributors: University Of Illinois At Chicago, Health Sciences Center.
Published: 1985
Number of pages: 175
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: In this study intensive telephone interviews elicited descriptions of postdischarge experiences from 25 adults who had uncomplicated hospitalizations for cholecystectomy surgery in order to conceptualize and theoretically order the process of recovery. Analysis identified generic and generalizable aspects of the subjects' definitions of their situations. Postdischarge recovery was a process of returning to normal as defined by pre-illness comparative standards of physical, social, and psychological well-being. The return to pre-illness social functioning occurred in three sequential phases: passivity, activity resumption, and stabilization. Subjects described making decisions concerning phase progression by integrating physiological and health professional cues with self-imposed and situational pressures. Limit testing and information seeking were strategies used to clarify and interpret cues; significant others and economic resources modified pressures within recovery situations. By six weeks postoperative, none of the subjects considered themselves returned to physical well-being; 15 considered themselves returned to their pre-illness level of social functioning with 10 of these subjects also considering themselves to have returned to their pre-illness level of psychological well-being.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-08, Section: B, page: 2619.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO, HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER, 1985.

School code: 0806.