SUMMARY
The purpose of this nursing study was to identify the influence of preoperative orientation on the patient's postoperative recovery. It was limited to adult patients undergoing gastrectomy as a treatment of peptic ulcer.
Twenty experimental patients were submitted to a planned preoperative instruction in the evening before surgery, and twenty control patients were not submitted to the same plan.
The major findings were: the number of postoperative complications and the average length of hospital stay were less for the experimental group than for the control group.