Enhancing Self-care of the New Ostomy Patient: Pre-operative Ostomy Class

Self-care of a new ostomy is a post-op goal for new ostomy patients.  To improve ostomy education, a pre-operative ostomy class was developed for patients scheduled for ostomy surgery.  Enhanced Recovery After Surgery, as well as post op recovery issues impact time available for WOC nurses to ensure adequate ostomy care teaching and reduce post op ostomy complications.  WOC nurses at a level 1 trauma teaching hospital designed and implemented a pre-operative ostomy education class offered to patients/family undergoing ostomy surgery.  The class focused on learning self-care of an ostomy through audio/visual and hands on pouching components.

Initial steps to create this class included meetings with inter-professional staff members involving surgeons, clinic managers and WOC nurses.  Class content was developed and reviewed by the local bladder cancer support group. The class was advertised through posting flyers, email correspondence, and direct phone calls to patients scheduled for ostomy surgery.

The class was held weekly for 3 months with a total of 8 participants. The post-operative teaching sessions incorporated, expanded and individualized the ostomy knowledge gained during the class.  Based on evaluation surveys, positive outcomes included overall patient satisfaction and increased confidence with ostomy care and knowledge prior to discharge. The challenges encountered included the difficulty in providing education of all three types of ostomies in one class.  The class date and location was not conducive for patients to attend during their surgery clinic visits.  The majority of the patients did not choose to attend the class due to perceived travel time.

 To improve the class, the WOC nurses partnered with urology service to increase attendance and patient accessibility by offering the class within the urology clinic based on pre-operative schedules. The WOC nurses are considering an online webcast/video conference option for those patients that cannot attend on site classes.