Standardized Postoperative Cardiac Surgery Educational Process: Improving Family-Centered Care.

CARDIAC surgery; INTENSIVE care units; CONFIDENCE; TEACHING methods; FOCUS groups; CHILDREN'S hospitals; FAMILIES; FAMILY-centered care; HEALTH literacy; PRE-tests & post-tests; T-test (Statistics); POSTOPERATIVE period; QUALITY assurance; DESCRIPTIVE statistics; PATIENT education; EDUCATIONAL outcomes; ALGORITHMS

Background: Sustaining an environment that incorporates quality and family-centered care requires attention to improvements that encourage family participation in patient care. Educating families occurs in a high-stress environment without regard to their health literacy level, and as a result, leads to repetitive questions and a lack of confidence. Design: This quality improvement intervention was aimed at standardizing postoperative education for pediatric patients and their families. Intervention: The intervention developed a standardized education process to improve the family's knowledge and confidence to provide care for their child. Outcomes: Findings indicated the process improved the family's identification of medical devices and increased parental confidence that led to an increase in family participation with daily needs. Conclusions: Providing families with education using an educational handout, including a pictorial image and written text, can bridge the literacy and knowledge gap between families and health care providers with postoperative cardiac patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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