Effect of Individualized Nursing Intervention on Postoperative Complications among Adult Patients with Abdominal Surgery

Background: Risk of mortality and complications following abdominal surgery is high as the global average. Aim: To determine the effect of the individualized nursing intervention on postoperative complications among adult patients with abdominal surgery.

Research design: A Quasi-experimental research design.

Setting and Subjects: General surgical department and outpatient clinic at Aswan university hospital on a convenience sample of 180 adult patients with abdominal surgery and divided into two groups.

Tools: (I). Demographic and clinical data of adult patients with abdominal surgy, (II). The African Surgical Outcomes Study (ASOS) in addition to the individualized nursing intervention.

Results: There was no statistically significant difference between both groups regarding the baseline demographic and clinical data. The majority of the studied patients in both groups had a high-risk ASOS ≥ 10 with no significance difference (>0.05). The minor percentage of the patients in study group (5.7%) had a superficial/deep surgical site, or body cavity infection but control group had other severe complications and postoperative bleeding (12.3 % and 11%) respectively.

Conclusion: There was a statistically significant difference between the studied patients in both groups regarding abdominal surgical postoperative complications (P. 0.004*).

Recommendations: Implementation strategies for resource-limited environments must include the use of educational meetings, tailoring and practicing interventions, and provision of feedback to change health-care provider behavior.