Effects of patient participation in the management of daily nursing goals on function recovery and resilience in surgical patients

Aims and objective To examine the effects of active patient participation in the management of daily nursing goal on surgical patient recovery. Background Nursing processes involving patient participation enable nursing interventions solely based on individual needs and expectations. This permits the establishment of nurse–patient treatment goals and supports permanent and effective nursing interventions through evaluation activities. Design A quasi‐experiment that relies on a nonequivalent pretest–post‐test design for the control group. Methods A nursing intervention involving patient participation was applied to patients who underwent digestive cancer surgery in a surgical ward in the Republic of Korea. A daily goals sheet for patient participation was developed. Twenty‐nine patients in the experimental group received the intervention every day from postoperative days 1–7 through the daily goals sheet. Data were collected on recovery in mobility, recovery of bowel movements, peak expiratory flow rate and pain and resilience after the experimental intervention. The control group contained 27 patients who were provided with routine nursing care alone. Results The daily nursing goal management group showed more rapid recovery in bowel movement, higher peak expiratory flow rate and lower pain scores than the control group. The daily nursing goal management group also had significantly higher resilience than the control group. Conclusions Daily nursing goal management is an effective nursing intervention for improving function recovery and resilience in surgical patients. Relevance to clinical practice Patient participation in daily nursing goal management is an effective nursing intervention applicable to nurse–patient treatment goals and supports permanent and effective nursing interventions through evaluation activities.