The use of guided imagery to improve pain and anxiety in same-day surgery patients at the Veterans Administration New Jersey Health Care System. Phase II

This Phase II DNP project is a Health Care Delivery Innovation a continuation of a pilot project, which introduced a low-cost easily taught kit to deliver a guided imagery session to pre-surgical patients at the Veterans Administration hospital on the day of surgery to improve pain and anxiety. The pilot project established that the kit which included an MP3 player with Belleruth Naparstek’s “Meditation to Promote Successful Surgery,” delivered on the day of surgery and reinforced for 7 days post-op, was an effective, low cost, easily taught, sustainable method to improve pain and anxiety in Same-Day Surgery Patients in a small sample size of Veterans, n=21. The Health Care Delivery Innovation objective is to reproduce the success of the guided imagery project but established in a larger sample size (n=40) and to improve on the original project design in preparation for Phase III streamlined nationwide implementation for wider dissemination. The Department of Defense (D o D), and Veteran Administration (VA) pain scale and the State-Trait Inventory Marteau & Bekker, (STAI) will be used to measure pain and anxiety upon check-in on the same day of surgery, after initial implementation before being called to surgery, and 7 days post-surgery.DNPIncludes bibliographical reference