Correlations between hospital discharge readiness and discharge instruction quality in chronic disease patients

Abstract

Objective To understand the hospital discharge readiness and discharge instruction quality in chronic disease patients and to analyze the correlation between them. Methods Totals of 602 chronic disease patients of related departments from 7 ClassⅢGrade A hospitals in Shanghai were selected by convenience sampling. All of them were investigated with the general information questionnaire, Readiness for Hospital Discharge Scale (RHDS) and Quality of Discharge Teaching Scale (QDTS) , and their data were analyzed. Results Among those patients, the scores of hospital discharge readiness and discharge instruction quality were (8.01±1.41) and (8.65±1.29) out of 10 respectively. The score of hospital discharge readiness had a positive correlation with the score of discharge instruction quality with a statistical difference (r=0.507, P<0.01) . Conclusions Hospital discharge readiness and discharge instruction quality of chronic disease patients are all in high levels and with a positive correlation. Nurses should enrich the content of discharge instruction to improve the quality of discharge instruction by appropriate instruction skills and to improve the hospital discharge readiness. Key words: Chronic diseases; Hospital discharge readiness; Quality of hospital discharge instruction; Correlations