Research in peri-operative nursing care

This review analyses 97 research reports dealing with peri-operative care w hich included patients. The literature review was done as the basis of a de velopment project to measure the quality of intra-operative nursing care fr om the patient's perspective. The pre-operative phase provides information about the teaching, anxiety an d stress of patients. Few sources dealt with the intra-operative phase; the re were a small amount of reports concerning concrete nursing activities (e .g. surgical position and warming the patient). The most information was av ailable on the post-operative phase, such as recovery, adaptation and the t reatment of pain. Peri-operative research is mainly! concerned with the quality of nursing ca re, control of life and ambulatory surgery. The main defects of analysed studies can be characterized as follows: small samples and a single hospital, lad; of definition of terms, theoretical am biguity, short follow-up times, anaesthetic or other drugs used during the care not mentioned in the report (especially in studies on pain and quality ). Previously developed research tools had usually!: been well tested, but there was great variety in the testing of investigator-constructed tools. T here were also discrepancies in the evaluation of validity and reliability. Future research should especially deal with treatment of pain and anxiety, information and guidance given to patients, and the costs of surgical care; there is also a need for studies dealing with intra-operative care from th e patient's perspective. Although information is already available on the a bove mentioned topics, more detailed and comprehensive facts are still need ed.