Several studies have found that preparing patients for surgery by providing them with more information about the sensations they can expect after surgery can have beneficial effects on recovery during the immediate in-hospital period. However, few if any studies have examined the potential benefits of psychologically preparing major surgery patients for the often long and difficult post-hospital recovery period. The proposed project represents an effort to develop a post-operative intervention for coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery that requires little staff time, and yet effectively improves quality of life and facilitates recovery during the year following hospital release. Two brief videotapes designed to provide accurate information regarding the events and sensations CABG patients typically experience during the year following hospital release will be developed. The tapes will depict actual CABG patients at various points following hospital release as they describe sensations, events, and feelings they are experiencing. One of these tapes will focus exclusively on the positive aspects of recovery, and will depict only patients having a relatively easy time and no coping difficulties. The second tape will depict patients experiencing but then overcoming some problems. Following development of the tapes, 150 post-operative CABG patients will be randomly assigned to view one of the videotapes the day prior to hospital release or to receive only standard release preparation. Measures of patients' quality of life, anxiety, depression, pain, surgery-related complications and rehospitalizations then will be collected at four points (1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months) following hospital release. Data analyses will include planned orthogonal comparisons contrasting: a) the videotape groups with the (non-videotape) standard release preparation group at each follow-up to determine whether the additional information provided in the videotapes has benefits over standard release preparation; and b) the coping tape group with the mastery tape group to determine whether a more complete picture of possible recovery scenarios is more effective than an optimistically slanted portrayal.
