Effects of Discharge Planning on Cost, Length of Stay, Health Behaviors and Quality of Life of Patients with Acute Myocardial Infarction

Abstract

Acute myocardial infarction is a fatal disease. This study was a research and development, aimed to improve discharge planning and investigate the effects of discharge planning among participation in multidisciplinary team to cost, length of stay, health behavior, and quality of life of patients with acute myocardial infarction. Data were collected between January- August 2012. The sample was 99 acute myocardial patients. The study instruments included questionnaires of health behaviors and quality of life as well as patient satisfaction. Reliability for the survey of each group was 0.763, 0.771 respectively. Data were analyzed applying by t-test. The results revealed that the mean scores of cost, length of stay, health behavior, and quality of life during the in-patient period of the control group and the study group had no different significantly. (p = 0.86, 0.182, 0.514 and 0.395 respectively). But the mean score of health behavior and quality of life during the follow up period of the study group increased significantly compared with the control group. (p = 0.01, 0.01 respectively). Whether future intervention to study other outcome such as satisfaction of multidisciplinary team and patient, rate of readmission in 3 month and 6 month and evaluation of variation of discharge planning warrant further study.