Many researchers are interested in examining experiences of surgical patients with the focus on a post-discharge period. In addition, researchers often choose to concentrate on the associated levels of readmissions in hospitals. The purpose of this paper is to summarize and evaluate the peer-reviewed literature on the topic of performing post-discharge telephone calls that is available in different databases.
Description of the Search Method
To find the peer-reviewed literature that is related to the problem of performing post-discharge telephone follow-up calls while working with adult surgical patients to prevent increases in levels of hospital readmissions, it was necessary to search such databases as PubMed and Ovid MEDLINE because they allowed for using PICO(T) question search tools. Thus, to find the most relevant articles, it was important to use such keywords as ‘surgery’, ‘surgical patients’, ‘follow-up’, ‘follow-up call’, ‘telephone’, ‘telephone follow-up’, ‘telephone call’, ‘post-discharge’, ‘post-discharge follow-up’, and ‘readmission’ in different combinations in order to specify the population, intervention, and outcome to guide the search with the help of the discussed tools.
It was critical to limit the search to randomized controlled trials, systematic reviews, and cohort studies that were published within the past five years. The inclusion criteria were the following ones: (a) an article has represented results of clinical trials, systematic reviews, and cohort studies; (b) an article has represented findings to support the use of post-discharge telephone follow-up calls to decrease the readmission rate; (c) an article was published within the past five years. The exclusion criterion was the inappropriateness of an article to support the proposed intervention. As a result, 3204 studies were found as suitable while using the selected keywords. After narrowing the search with the focus on inclusion and exclusion criteria, 238 articles were determined as appropriate. Ten articles were selected for further examination at this stage of working on the project (see References).
Summary of the Selected Studies
The article by Leppin et al. (2014) has presented the results of a systematic review of the literature related to the use of interventions to reduce hospital readmissions. It was found that different interventions, including follow-up calls, could decrease the rate of readmissions significantly because of improvements in post-discharge care. However, the article had weaknesses because of including the limited number of trials to discuss in terms of using telephone follow-up calls. In their turn, Szöts, Konradsen, Solgaard, and Østergaard (2014) have stated that telephone follow-ups contributed to improving health outcomes for surgical patients. Clari et al. (2015) also supported these conclusions, and the strength of their study was in presenting the credible and detailed controlled trial. On the contrary, the study by Sooby and Kirkland (2015) had many limitations because of its type, and the study’s results could be used only for providing background information.
Daniels et al. (2016) have found that those surgical patients who received calls from nurses after discharging had fewer complaints and reasons to be readmitted to hospitals. The study’s strength was the focus on a large sample to discuss patients’ satisfaction in this context. Similar results were provided by Chen, Li, and Lin (2016), who studied the impact of telephone follow-ups on patients’ outcomes and quality of life. According to Hoffman and Pelosini (2016), telephone follow-ups could increase patient satisfaction, but the study’s limitations were in using a small sample and a non-randomized method. In their study, Lushaj et al. (2016) also focused on studying the impact of telephone follow-up calls on readmission levels. The strength of the study was in providing the statistically supported conclusions regarding the positive effect of calls on decreasing readmission rates. Hornick, Balderman, Eugea, Sanchez, and Zayed (2016) discussed the role of follow-ups to reduce risk factors for surgical patients, and the study’s weakness was in focusing on readmissions only as one of the risks. The results of the study by Antonoff et al. (2016) were also important, but it could be discussed as limited because it was designed as a review.
Internal and External Validity
While discussing internal and external validity in relation to the summarized studies, it is important to note that systematic reviews and randomized controlled and clinical trials have the highest level of external validity in contrast to cohort studies and reviews because of the possibility to generalize the received results. Therefore, the high external validity is typical of works by Leppin et al. (2014), Szöts et al. (2014), Clari et al. (2015), Daniels et al. (2016), Hornick et al. (2016), and Chen et al. (2016). Despite the fact that not all of the discussed studies are characterized by external validity, internal validity is typical of all studies summarized for the purpose of this project because results presented in the articles are directly attributable or related to the set independent variables. However, not all dependent variables are directly associated with the topic of this project, and the information presented in these articles can be used to provide the background for the study.
Conclusion
The paper presents a summary of the literature that is appropriate to support the project and provide the background for analyzing the formulated research question. The review of the literature demonstrates that there are many articles that are directly or indirectly associated with the topic of the planned project. The analysis of the articles’ credibility indicates that all studies are characterized by high-level internal validity, and almost all provided studies are characterized by significant external validity.
References
Antonoff, M. B., Ragalie, W., Correa, A. M., Spicer, J. D., Sepesi, B., Roth, J. A.,… & Vaporciyan, A. A. (2016). Results of postdischarge nursing telephone assessments: Persistent symptoms common among pulmonary resection patients. The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, 12(4), 1-6. Web.
Chen, M., Li, P., & Lin, F. (2016). Influence of structured telephone follow-up on patient compliance with rehabilitation after total knee arthroplasty. Patient Preference and Adherence, 10(1), 257-264. Web.
Clari, M., Frigerio, S., Ricceri, F., Pici, A., Alvaro, R., & Dimonte, V. (2015). Follow‐up telephone calls to patients discharged after undergoing orthopaedic surgery: Double‐blind, randomised controlled trial of efficacy. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 24(19), 2736-2744. Web.
Daniels, S. A., Kelly, A., Bachand, D., Simeoni, E., Hall, C., Hofer, S. M., & Hayashi, A. (2016). Call to care: The impact of 24-hour postdischarge telephone follow-up in the treatment of surgical day care patients. The American Journal of Surgery, 211(5), 963-967. Web.
Hoffman, J. J., & Pelosini, L. (2016). Telephone follow-up for cataract surgery: Feasibility and patient satisfaction study. International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, 29(4), 407-416. Web.
Hornick, J. R., Balderman, J. A., Eugea, R., Sanchez, L. A., & Zayed, M. A. (2016). A telephone call 1 week after hospitalization can identify risk factors for vascular surgery readmission. Journal of Vascular Surgery, 64(3), 719-725. Web.
Leppin, A. L., Gionfriddo, M. R., Kessler, M., Brito, J. P., Mair, F. S., Gallacher, K.,… & Ting, H. H. (2014). Preventing 30-day hospital readmissions: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials. JAMA Internal Medicine, 174(7), 1095-1107. Web.
Lushaj, E. B., Nelson, K., Amond, K., Kenny, E., Badami, A., & Anagnostopoulos, P. V. (2016). Timely post-discharge telephone follow-up is a useful tool in identifying post-discharge complications patients after congenital heart surgery. Pediatric Cardiology, 37(6), 1106-1110. Web.
Sooby, P., & Kirkland, P. (2015). Use of nurse-led telephone follow-up as a sole method of assessing patients after nasal surgery. BMJ Quality Improvement Reports, 4(1), 1-4. Web.
Szöts, K., Konradsen, H., Solgaard, S., & Østergaard, B. (2014). Telephone follow-up by nurse following total knee arthroplasty-protocol for a randomized clinical trial. BMC Nursing, 13(1), 1-8. Web.