effect of a preoperative preparation program for mothers on postoperative recovery of their infants and children with hirschsbrung's disease

ABSTRACT

Research studies indicate that Hirschsprung's Disease [HD] was not adequately treated and managed by health team members and mothers. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of a preoperative preparation of mothers of infants and children with HD on postoperative recovery of their children. Two research hypotheses were utilized to reach to this aim: 1] children with HD whose mothers are preoperatively prepared will have better postoperative outcome than children of unprepared mothers and 2] children with HD whose mothers are preoperatively prepared will have fewer postoperative complications than children of unprepared mothers. A total sample of 60 mothers of children with HD were divided equally into two groups; the control and the study group. A pre-post quasi- experimental design was adopted to conduct this study. The tools used for data collection were; a questionnaire sheet [pre- post test] to assess mothers' knowledge about HD, two observational checklists to evaluate mothers practices regarding HD, and an outcome sheet to evaluate the recovery of those children. A preparation program was developed to enrich mothers' knowledge and practice about HD. The study results revealed that a highly significant difference was present between the control and study group regarding the mean scores of different items of knowledge in the post- test. The study group had better performance than the control group in relation to children's care. Results also indicated that children in the immediate [2-4 days postoperatively] and late [2 months later] follow up in the study group had better postoperative outcome and less complications than the control group. Results supported the research hypotheses and concluded that improvement of mothers' awareness about their children's illness preoperatively may help in improving children's postoperative outcome: