Inadequacies of surgical patient education.

Education of surgical patients by hospital staff members is often hampered by temporal, spatial and personnel barriers. It is desirable that regular staff members themselves provide patients with information. To improve surgical patient education by staff members, an examination was performed in two hospitals of events related to surgical patients' treatment, care and education during the course of their admission in hospital. The method consisted of interviews with patients and health care providers and observations of critical events. Patients were found to experience emotional problems, such as fear of surgery and anesthesia and lack of information about medical details, the roles of various health care providers and about discharge from the hospital. These problems appeared to be caused by organizational barriers and by inadequacies of the method of information provision. The results of the examination provide a sound basis to develop, in collaboration with hospital staff members, programs to improve surgical patient education.