Does Preoperative Visiting Reduce Patient Anxiety - Essay Example

Pre-admission/assessment clinics are now an essential part of the patient’s surgical pathway in preparing the patient for surgery. Communication between such clinics and preoperative staff is consequently important to ensure that patient’s particular requirements are identified at this early stage, and preparation by preoperative staff ensures that the patient’s needs are met.Optional or Emergency SurgerySurgical procedures can be generally classified as either elective or emergency.

Elective surgery aims to be carried out when the patient is in the best health however before the surgery affects the quality and endangers their life. Clinicians decide if a planned process is ‘urgent’ or can be arranged at a time expedient for the surgeon and patient (Phillips, 2004; Smith, 2000).Emergency surgery may be due to trauma or an accident, gastrointestinal obstruction, or perforated viscera. The injury may be immediately critical, and hence the procedure is performed within 1–2 hours from admission.

Other emergencies may necessitate procedures within 24–48 hours following the injury, although in both instances it may not be possible to preoperatively examine these patients. Information may be limited, and thus it is essential that the preoperative team communicate with each other to manage the delivery of safe patient care during this potentially distressing period in the patient’s journey (Smith, 2000).Patient PreparationPreparing the preoperative environment starts before the patient arrives.

Turner et al (2000) identified that the preoperative environment is potentially one of the most dangerous of all clinical environments. The only information that may be available for the staff is retrieved from the operating theatre list, which is written daily and produced ideally 48 hours before the patients, are asleep, uncertain if they will wake up and what will happen to them; for student nurses, it is a strange experience, which to begin with they feel unable to relate to other environments; and for other hospital staff, they feel as if they are entering an environment where everything is different and goes on behind closed doors.

Ensuring that the highest standard of patient care is delivered to each, individual patient during their journey within the preoperative environment is elementary to the preoperative nurse’s role. Patient interaction and communication are essential, despite the fact that covert if the patient is asleep, as preoperative nurses assess, prepare, plan and implement care.Preoperative Period‘Preoperative’ refers to the total surgical experience and includes pre-, intra-, and postoperative phases of the patient’s surgical journey (Phillips, 2004).

The preoperative period is from the minute the patient arrives through the operating theatre doors to the moment they leave through those same doors post-procedure.