To Establish and Evaluate a Rehabilitation Nursing Program for Patients Receiving Orthopaedic Surgery

Most orthopedic hospitalized patients are diagnostic with fracture and osteoarthritis. Surgical treatment is the first choice for surgeon to encourage patient early ambulatory, physical function recovery and working ability. Scholar recommended that orthopedic nurses should assist patient in performing rehabilitation exercises, use individualized rehabilitation plan to decrease patient postoperative discomfort, early ambulatory, and recover muscle power and range of motion. In first year, the main aims of this study are to investigate the model of rehabilitation nursing; patients perform rehabilitation exercise, and its related factors. In second year, to compare the effects of rehabilitation nursing education program. The third year, to compare the effects of rehabilitation nursing standard in patient’s performing exercise and functional recovery. This is a longitudinal research design. A descriptive survey study in the first year with subjects chosen from one medical center and one teaching hospital in Taipei, Total sample size is 100 patients. A quasi-experimental design is used with pre, post, and post-post test, total sample size is 60, with 30 for the experimental group and 30 for the control group in the second year. And also a quasi-experimental design is used with pre and post test, total sample size is 100, with 50 for the experimental group and 50 for the control group in the third year. Instruments include demographic data, numeric rating scale, self-efficacy for functional activities scale, functional status, rehabilitation nursing status survey and knowledge for rehabilitation nursing. A 10-hour rehabilitation nursing education program and rehabilitation nursing standard are established and performed to evaluate their effects. Patient’s functional status before admission, physical activity self-efficacy, pain level, first ambulatory time, rehabilitation exercise, and functional status before discharge are collected. And rehabilitation nursing model and knowledge for rehabilitation nursing are also investigated. The statistic methods include descriptive analysis, t-test, paired t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson correlation, and multiple regressions.