Effectiveness of early ambulation on postoperative anxiety and co-operation among laparotomy surgical patients

Context: 

Ambulation improves blood flow, wound healing and reduces postoperative complications.

To assess the effectiveness of early ambulation on the level of anxiety, co-operation and to correlate the anxiety level with co-operation among postoperative patients in the experimental and control group. Settings and Design: Pre- and post-test control group design was adapted for the present study. The participants were selected based on simple random assignment technique using the lottery method from the selected hospital at Puducherry.

A total of 120 participants were selected for the study, 60 patients were allotted for the experimental group and initiated early ambulation. After 15 h of postoperative period, the patient was ambulated for two times a day for a distance of 30–40 feet, continuously for 5 postoperative days. Sixty samples were allotted for the control group who receives regular postoperative instructions. Modified STAI-Y-1 scale is used to measure the level of anxiety and observation checklist was used to monitor the co-operation for postoperative care before the initiation of early ambulation as pretest and after 5 postoperative days as posttest. Statistical Analysis Used: The data were analyzed using SPSS v. 16 (Chicago, Illinois, USA), statistical tests including frequency, percentage, and Chi-square.

Both the groups had severe anxiety levels (100%) and were noncooperative to postoperative care in the pretest. In posttest, the majority (85%) of the client shows mild anxiety, 15% shows no anxiety and most (88%) of the clients were fully cooperative for postoperative care in the experimental group. Whereas in the control group, 90% of the clients shows severe anxiety and were noncooperative.

Early ambulation is very effective in reducing postoperative anxiety, thereby the patient was very cooperative for care. Therefore, nurses can teach the importance of early ambulation to patients with laparatomy surgeries