Determination of difficulties and requireiments of patients at home after cataract surgery

Cataract is the reason for half of the global blindness cases and it is commonly seen at elderly persons. It is pointed out that surgery is the best and proven treatment of cataract. However, patients can have some problems and complications just after surgery. The aim of this study is to determine what difficulties and requirements of patients are at home after surgery. The type of study is descriptive. Study includes 108 patients who had been undergone an operation in Baskent University Hospital and approved research voluntarily in the period of 15 December 2013- 15 March 2014. In this study, form of descriptive characteristic of patients and determination of disease condition, after discharge observation form and National Eye İnstitute Visual Function Questionnaire (NEI VFQ-25) were used. Average age of partaken patients is 71.34±8.7 and 37 % of them underwent an operation and 73.1% got information about cataract surgery. The mean score of NEI VFQ-25 was 63.3±17 the next day after the surgery, it increased to 88.5±124 the month after the surgery (p=0,000). First 24 hours of after surgery patients, who underwent an operation, felt mostly anxiety (68.5%), fatigue (49.1%), pain (46.3%), feeling of sting in eyes (34.2%) and insomnia (30.6%). It is stated that first week, these symptoms and heaviness of it were strong, while they were not in the fourth week. Of the patients, 2.8% ocular infection, 3.7% raised intraocular pressure, 2.8% oedema and one patient seconder cataract was determined while another had undergone operation for lens reposition. After first week of cataract surgery, some individual activities were affected in performing daily activities which are social life (54.6-32.4%), family household (50.9-32.4%), reading (38.8-32.4%), shopping (26.9-32.4%) and using phone (15.7-5.6%), these difficulties lessened in other weeks. The average point of pain, anxiety and fatigue of the individuals who stated that routine daily activities had been affected because of the surgery have been meaningful statistically according to the individual who stated otherwise. In conclusion, in the first week of after early period of cataract surgery patients experience some strong difficulties and these difficulties affect daily life activities and increase the requirement of help. From there results, it is recommended that training programs and materials should be prepared according to requirements of patients and given consulting service after discharge from hospital.