Patti Kastanias
University of Toronto, Canada
Biography
Patti Kastanias is a Nurse Practitioner at the University of Toronto Collaborative Bariatric Surgery program at the Toronto Western Hospital, University Health Network since 2011 and is a Lecturer at the Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, University of Toronto. Prior to this she was a nurse practitioner for over 10 years in the Toronto Western Hospital Acute Pain Service. She has published several original articles on pain management practice and presented nationally and internationally on the topics of pain management, bariatric and nurse practitioner practice.
Abstract
Surgical patients consider information about pain management to be highly important. At the same time, evidence indicates that individuals of racial/ethnic minorities are more likely to experience inadequate pain management. This study investigated the needs of Limited English Proficiency (LEP) general day surgery patients, who spoke primarily Italian, Cantonese, or Portuguese at home for information about postoperative pain. LEP subjects who had undergone a day surgery procedure completed a telephone information needs survey in their native language (Italian, Portuguese, or Cantonese) within 72 hours after discharge from a large urban Canadian hospital center. Composite mean scores were calculated for each item. Chi-squared analyses were used to probe for intergroup differences. Sixty-three subjects in total completed the survey: 41% Italian, 38% Portuguese, 21% Cantonese. Mean age of the sample was 70 years old, 89% were born outside of Canada and 52% were male. All survey items were rated as moderate (5-6/10) to high ( >7/10) importance. Surgical subtype, health status and age had no effect on the importance of any item. There were no significant differences between the three language groups on any of the items. Overall, the top ranked information items were: the plan for which drugs to take and when; what I can do if I still have pain or side effects and side effects I was most likely to get. When compared with English fluent subjects, LEP subjects overall placed more importance on information regarding help with paying for pain medication (p = 0.001) and the side effects they were most likely to get (p< 0.05). Due to a paucity of literature in this area, further research is warranted.