The Effect of Written Information and Reassurance on Patient Satisfaction, Anxiety, and Intent to Return for Emergency Care

Patients' satisfaction is one of the primary goals of emergency department (ED) providers today. As emergency departments are overcrowded, stressful environments, anxious patients want to be kept informed. Nurses have the opportunity to meet these needs and possibly influence the patients' perception of the experience and intent to return for future care. This study examined the effects of providing written information and reassurance on patient satisfaction, anxiety, and intent to return for emergency care. The design was a posttest design involving a comparison between the control and three experimental groups. Two hundred and forty patients participated in the study, approximately 60 per group. All subjects were asked to rate their level of anxiety on arrival and discharge from the ED, complete the Consumer Emergency Care Satisfaction Scale, and the Intent to Return scale. There were no statistically significant differences among the four groups (p <.05). Patient satisfaction scores and intent to return scores were high. Anxiety scores were low. Implications and recommendations from this study were made for nursing research, clinical practice, need to conduct qualitative research on patient activity in the ED setting. Instruments measuring anxiety and satisfaction in the ED setting need to be developed and refined. Nursing interventions to improve the quality of the ED experience need to be identified and tested.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Nursing Science

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation: Open Access

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Nursing

Year dc:date.available

1996

Author dc:creator

• Andrea, June, DNSc

• Anxiety
• emergency care
• nurse-patient relationship
• nursing
• patients

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digital.sandiego.edu/dissertations/254

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digital.sandiego.edu:dissertations-1257