Patient experiences of, and preferences for, surgical wound care education

Abstract

The aim of this study was to describe patients' experiences of, and preferences for, surgical wound care discharge education and how these experiences predicted their ability to self-manage their surgical wounds. A telephone survey of 270 surgical patients was conducted across two hospitals two weeks after discharge. Patients preferred verbal (n = 255, 94.8%) and written surgical wound education (n = 178, 66.2%) from medical (n = 229, 85.4%) and nursing staff (n = 211, 78.7%) at discharge. The most frequent education content that patients received was information about follow-up appointments (n = 242, 89.6%) and who to contact in the community with wound care concerns (n = 233, 86.6%). Using logistic regression, patients who perceived that they participated in surgical wound care decisions were 6.5 times more likely to state that they were able to manage their wounds at home. Also, patients who agreed that medical and/or nursing staff discussed wound pain management were 3.1 times more likely to report being able to manage their surgical wounds at home. Only 40% (107/270) of patients actively participated in wound-related decision-making during discharge education. These results uncovered patient preferences, which could be used to optimise discharge education practices. Embedding patient participation into clinical workflows may enhance patients' self-management practices once home.patient education as topic, patient participation, surgical wounds, surveys and questionnaires, wounds and injuries Key Messages• effective surgical wound care discharge education can equip patients with the necessary knowledge and skills to manage their surgical wounds at home

Effectiveness of interventions to enhance shared decision‐making in wound care: A systematic review

“…Initial searches yielded 1,063 independent records from systematic database searching after removal of duplicates (Figure 1). After screening titles, abstracts and full texts for eligibility, eight articles were included in the review (Chaboyer et al, 2016;Dobke et al, 2008;Guihan et al, 2014;Kelechi et al, 2014;McBride et al, 2016;Pereira, Figueiredo-Braga, Carvalho, 2016;Subrata et al, 2020;Tobiano et al, 2023) (Table 1). Two additional published study protocols may have produced relevant results for our review (NCT04019340: The Impact of a Pluridisciplinary Education Program on Venous Leg Ulcer Size Reduction and ISRCTN19208427: Enhancement of patient autonomy by active role training with operative patients).…”

“…The eight included articles covered a variety of wound types. Two studies included people with nonhealing ulcers caused from a variety of different aetiologies (Dobke et al, 2008;Kelechi et al, 2014), two studies analysed surgical patients (Pereira, Figueiredo-Braga, Carvalho, 2016;Tobiano et al, 2023) and two studies included people both at high risk of a wound occurrence and already having a wound caused by diabetes (Subrata et al, 2020) or pressure (Chaboyer et al, 2016). One study evaluated those with severe pressure ulcers (Guihan et al, 2014) and another evaluated those with diabetic foot ulcers (McBride et al, 2016).…”

“…Three studies were conducted in the United States of America (Dobke et al, 2008;Guihan et al, 2014;Kelechi et al, 2014), two in Australia (Chaboyer et al, 2016;Tobiano et al, 2023) and one each from Indonesia (Subrata et al, 2020), Portugal (Pereira, Figueiredo-Braga, Carvalho, 2016) and the United Kingdom (McBride et al, 2016) (table 1).…”

“…This was done exclusively in five studies (Dobke et al, 2008;Guihan et al, 2014;Kelechi et al, 2014;Pereira, Figueiredo-Braga, Carvalho, 2016;Subrata et al, 2020). This was combined with a tool to support decision deliberation in one study (McBride et al, 2016), involvement in how decisions are implemented in another (Chaboyer et al, 2016) and was poorly described in one study but perceived to include a decision making component by a number of participants (Tobiano et al, 2023) The content and delivery of interventions to support the exchange and transfer for knowledge varied. Motivational interviewing or motivational enhancement techniques were used in three studies to help patients reflect on, discover and overcome barriers to care (Guihan et al, 2014;Kelechi et al, 2014;Subrata et al, 2020).…”

Post‐operative nursing activities to prevent wound complications in patients undergoing colorectal surgeries: A scoping review

“…Overall, the nursing activities identified in our review were delegated and highly technical, suggesting there is scope to investigate independent nursing activities like ‘patient and family education’. A recent study showed that patients who perceived they were more engaged in education in hospital, managed their surgical wound better at home (Tobiano et al., 2022). Experts believe that promoting patient and family education could empower patients to manage postoperative wound complications themselves, thus reducing SSI (Tartari et al., 2017).…”