A number of studies have demonstrated that preparing patients for surgery can have beneficial effects on physical and psychological recovery. However, no research has systematically evaluated the effects of psychologically preparing patients' spouses for the recovery period. The proposed project represents an effort to develop an intervention for the spouses of coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery patients that requires little staff time, and yet effectively reduces spouses' distress levels and improves perceived quality of life during the months following the patients' surgery. Further, it is expected the intervention will enable spouses to deliver more effective social support and thereby to contribute to less psychological upset, a higher quality of life, and a less complicated course of recovery for patients as well. Two brief videotapes will be developed that provide accurate information regarding the events and feelings typically experienced by spouses of CABG surgery patients during the patient's hospitalization and the first 6 months following hospital release. The tapes will depict actual CABG patients and their spouses at various points following the patient's surgery as they describe sensations, events, and feelings they are experiencing. One of the tapes will focus exclusively on the positive aspects of the recovery period and will depict the spouses as adjusting to the recovery period without major coping difficulties. The other tape will depict a more varied scenario with (some) spouses experiencing and overcoming several problems and coping difficulties. Following development and validation of the tapes, the spouses of 150 CABG patients will be randomly assigned either to view one of the videotapes at the time of the patient's surgery or to receive only standard information provided by the hospital. Measures of spouses' psychological upset and quality of life, as well as patients' psychological upset, quality of life, physical recovery, and perceived social support will he collected several times during the 6 months following the patients' hospital release. Data analyses will include planned orthogonal comparisons contrasting: a) the videotape groups with the (non-videotape) standard preparation group at each follow-up to determine whether psychological preparation of spouses benefits both spouse distress and patient recovery; and b) the coping tape group with the mastery tape group to determine whether a more complete picture that includes possible negative recovery scenarios is more effective than an optimistically slanted portrayal.
| Kulik, James A; Mahler, Heike I M (2006) Marital quality predicts hospital stay following coronary artery bypass surgery for women but not men. Soc Sci Med 63:2031-40 |
| Mahler, Heike I M; Kulik, James A (2002) Effects of a videotape information intervention for spouses on spouse distress and patient recovery from surgery. Health Psychol 21:427-37 |
