Spouse-related factors associated with Quality of Recovery of patients after hip or knee replacement : a Nordic perspective

• Background: Today’s shorter hospital stays means that patients may need support from informal caregivers during their recovery period. The responsibility for providing this support shifts from the health care staff to their family members fairly early in the recovery process. Spousal caregivers are considered to be primary caregivers as their relationship with the patient is more interdependent than other family members or caregivers.Objectives: The aim was to describe spouse-related factors that were associated with patients’ quality of recovery on discharge from hospital after elective hip or knee replacement.Design: The design was prospective, descriptive and comparative with two measurements; before arthroplasty and on discharge.Settings: Two Finnish, three Icelandic and two Swedish university or community hospitals.Participants: The sample consisted of spouses and patients. The inclusion criteria were: age ≥ 18 years, able to complete the questionnaires, and able to understand Finnish/Icelandic/Swedish. The patients were asked to identify one family member. Spouses were those defining themselves as; wife, husband or cohabiting partner. Out of 463 spouses, 306 (66%) were included. The mean age of the included spouses was 64 years, and 54% of them were females.Methods: Self-reported instruments on; expected and received knowledge, access to knowledge, emotional state and quality of recovery were used.Results: If the spouses were or had been employed in the social services or healthcare their partner had greater quality of recovery (p=0.006). Spouses experiencing negative emotions had partners who experienced lower quality of recovery (p<0.001). Spouses who experienced that nurses had enough time and explained matters concerning their family members’ care and treatment had partners who experienced greater quality of recovery (p=0.011, 0.044).Conclusions: Spouses’ emotional state played an important role in the patients’ quality of recovery, with uncertainty and depressive state as the main predictors. The importance of nurses explaining matters sufficiently to spouses was emphasized, while spouses’ fulfilment of knowledge expectations was not associated with patients’ recovery.

Ämnesord

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Omvårdnad (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Nursing (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Folkhälsovetenskap, global hälsa, socialmedicin och epidemiologi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Access to knowledge

empowering knowledge

emotional state

fulfilment of knowledge expectations

hip replacement

knee replacement

recovery

spousal caregivers

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)