Aims and objectives: The aim of this study was to determine how discharge training and counselling provided to patients, who had undergone coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, had effects on patients' self-care ability and on the problems encountered after discharge. The objectives were to help patients develop self-care behaviour to deal more comfortably with the problems caused by the disease and, hopefully, to reduce the number of problems they may encounter.
Background: CABG surgery patients needing to manage various aspects of their self-care at home often find these tasks very difficult to carry out effectively. Discharge training and counselling services help patients undergoing CABG to develop self-care behaviours.
Design: The study was prospective and quasi-experimental.
Methods: The intervention and control groups consisted of 57 patients who were given discharge training and counselling by a researcher and 52 patients who were given routines by a nurse, respectively. The intervention group began receiving discharge training and counselling on the day of hospitalization. These were provided according to their individual knowledge needs and patients were given a booklet developed for training purposes. Data were collected by researcher using the Personal Information Form, the Self-Care Agency Scale.
Results: It was found that the intervention group had a higher mean self-care score than the control group and experienced fewer problems following discharge compared with patients in the control group.
Conclusion: The discharge training and counselling services given to patients in the intervention group had a positive impact on the self-care ability of these patients and on alleviating the problems they encountered.
Relevance to clinical practice: As discharge training and counselling services had a positive impact on the self-care and alleviation of the problems that patients encounter after being discharged, we recommend application of these services and the usage of the training booklet for CABG patients.