Effect of Complementary Therapies in Patients Following Cardiac Surgery: A Narrative Review

The effect of a smartphone-based perioperative nursing intervention: prayer, education, exercise therapy, hypnosis, and music toward pain, anxiety, and early mobilization on cardiac surgery

Background: Cardiac surgery can elicit both physical and psychological responses. Prayer, exercise therapy, education, hypnosis, and music are expected to be able to overcome pain, anxiety, and immobilization in the cardiac surgery. This study was to create a smartphone-based peri-operative nursing intervention model that was able to reduce pain, anxiety, and increase early mobilization cardiac surgery patients.

Design and methods: This study consisted of three stages. The first stage was research and development, the second was true experimental design, and the third was cross sectional design. The samples size was 86 respondents. The intervention models for the treatment group comprised of a smartphone-based therapy of prayer, education, exercise, hypnosis, and music. The control group was given standard hospital intervention according to the clinical pathway.

Results: The majority of respondents were adults, male, high school graduate in the treatment group and bachelor graduate in the control group, CABG type of surgery, and having pain history. The intervention had a significant effect on reducing pain scale and anxiety level as well as increasing early mobilization (p<0.05). The intervention had a direct effect on pain and anxiety, but it had no direct effect on early mobilization. However, it gave indirect effect on early mobilization that was mediated by anxiety.

Conclusions: The models can be used by nurses to reduce pain, anxiety and to increase early mobilization on cardiac surgery patients.

Complementary Therapies Used by Indonesians With Myocardial Infarction

This descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted to identify types, frequency, methods, duration, and purpose of complementary therapies used by Indonesians with myocardial infarction. The majority of the respondents used biologically based therapies, with the most common subtype being herbs. The purpose of using biologically based therapies was for health promotion.

Effect of Acupressure on Pain Severity in Patients Undergoing Coronary Artery Graft: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Background

Considering the contradictory results on the role of complementary therapies in correcting post-operative side effects, the aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of acupressure on pain severity in patients undergoing coronary artery graft admitted to a coronary care unit.

Methods

In this double-blind, randomized, clinical trial, 70 patients were selected randomly after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery based on inclusion criteria and then assigned to two groups (35 in acupressure and 35 in control) randomly by the minimization method. The intervention group received acupressure at the LI4 point for 20 minutes in 10-second pressure and 2-second resting periods. In the control group, only touching was applied without any pressure in the same pattern as the intervention group. Pain severity was measured before, immediately, and 20 minutes after applying pressure and touch in both groups using the visual analogue scale.

Results

The results of repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed a decrease in the pain score in the intervention group (group effect) during multiple measurements (time effect) and a reduction in the mean pain score in the various measurements taking into account the groups (the interaction between time and group; P = 0.001).

Conclusions

Acupressure can be used as a complementary and alternative therapeutic approach to relieve post-operative pain in CABG patients.