NEEDS OF RECOVERING CARDIAC PATIENTS AND THEIR SPOUSES - COMPARED VIEWS

Identifying the needs of patients and spouses following an acute cardi ac event is an essential first step in the development of nursing inte rventions to facilitate couples' psychosocial adaptation. Therefore, t he self-perceived needs of 49 couples were compared 5 months following the patients' hospitalization for an acute cardiac event (i.e. myocar dial infarction or coronary artery revascularization). Both patients a nd spouses identified the need for information as being most important compared with all other needs; however, significant discrepancies wer e found in ratings between patients and spouses. Needs which spouses r ated as having a high priority included receiving information about th e patient's feelings during the recovery period, having time alone, ta lking with the patient about concerns, and receiving information about the expected psychological recovery. Patients did not consider these same needs as they related to their spouses particularly important. Ra ther, they rated the need for information about their condition, the n eed to have honest explanations, and the need to talk with a health pr ofessional about their problems as having the highest priority. Many o f the needs that both patients and spouses ranked as being important o r very important were unmet in 40-70% of the cases. In this study, bot h patients and spouses expressed similar needs for information, but th e type of information that they wanted differed and, in the majority o f cases, these needs were not met by nurses and physicians.