The effect of tele-nursing counseling on symptom control and self care strength in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft surgery

Objective: It was planned as randomized controlled experimental study to examine the effect of post discharge telenursing counseling on symptom control and self-care in patients who undergoing coronary artery bypass graft surgery. Method: The research was conducted between July 2022 and July 2023 with a total of 72 patients, 36 of whom were in the experimental group and 36 of whom were in the control group, who underwent coronary artery bypass graft surgery in the cardiovascular surgery clinic of a city hospital in Istanbul. Before the research, the necessary ethics committee approval, institutional permissions, written consent from the patients and permission from the scale owners were obtained. Data were collected with the Patient Information Form, Cardiac Surgery Symptom Inventory, Telephone Consultation Form and Self-Care Strenght Scale. The patients in the experimental and control groups were interviewed and a patient information form was applied when they were admitted to the intensive care unit. The Cardiac Surgery Symptom Inventory and the Self-Care Strength Scale were administered to the control group patients by telephone in the first 24 hours of discharge and at the 3rd week after discharge. The patients in the experimental group were given counseling services in line with the telephone call protocol in the first 24 hours of discharge, in the first week, in the second week and in the third week, and the Cardiac Surgery Symptom Inventory and Self-Care Power Scale were administered. SPSS software version 26 (IBM Corp, Armonk, NY, USA) was used to evaluate the data. The results were evaluated with a 95% confidence interval and significance below p<0.05. Results: There was no statistically significant difference in the descriptive characteristics of the patients according to the research groups (experimental and control) (p>0,05) and it was determined that the groups were distributed homogeneously. When the groups were compared, the first and last measurement Cardiac Surgery Symptom Inventory scores were statistically significantly lower in the experimental group given telenursing consultancy compared to the control group (p<0,001); In both measurements, it was determined that cardiac surgery-related symptoms were seen at a lower level in the experimental group than in the control group. In intra-group comparison, it was determined that cardiac surgery-related symptoms decreased statistically significantly in the last measurement compared to the first measurement in both the experimental and control groups (p<0,001). In intra-group comparison, while a statistically significant increase was observed in the self-care strenght at the last measurement compared to the first measurement in the experimental group (p<0,001), no statistically significant change was detected in the self-care strenght at the last measurement compared to the first measurement in the control group (p>0,05). Conclusion: It was determined that the symptoms of the patients in the intervention group of the counseling provided by tele nursing decreased and their self-care power increased compared to the patients in the control group.