Patients’ Experiences on Preoperative Telephone Education in Day Surgery: A Qualitative Study

PURPOSE: To describe the patients' experiences on preoperative telephone education in day surgery. DESIGN: A descriptive, qualitative approach. METHODS: The data were collected from day surgery patients (n = 31) in 2020 via face-to-face interviews. The themes of interviews were General experiences, Interaction, Patient-centeredness, Goal-oriented treatment, and Development ideas. Deductive-inductive content analysis was used. The Consolidated Quality of Research Reporting checklist was used. FINDINGS: General experiences included six main categories: Usefulness, Contents, Benefits, Emotional support, Unnecessariness, and Other education methods. In the interaction, three main categories were formed: Implementation, Opportunity to ask, and Information access challenges. In patient-centeredness, three main categories were formed: Individuality, Wishes, and Role of loved ones. Goal-oriented treatment included two main categories: Awareness and Accessibility. Development ideas for preoperative telephone education also included two main categories: Nothing to develop and Development content. CONCLUSIONS: Patients express high levels of satisfaction with preoperative telephone education, underscoring the significance of a personalized, individualized, patient-centered, and multichannel approach. To further optimize patient education, innovative strategies and technology integration are needed to enhance communication. These efforts can make telephone education a more effective tool for achieving optimal health outcomes and improving patient experience.