Factors Influencing Maternal Readiness for Hospital Discharge: A Cross-Sectional Study.
Zhijing Feng, Xiaofei Tian, Haiyang Zheng and 6 others
PMID 42008776WHAT IT FOUND
Mothers' readiness for hospital discharge after birth was linked to how nurses delivered discharge teaching and to their lifestyle and newborn-care skills.
The study measured readiness and teaching on the same day and did not test whether teaching improves readiness.
Key findings
01Mean maternal readiness for discharge was 132.17, with a possible range of 0 to 180, and the coping ability subdimension score was 21.38 of 30.
02Readiness differed significantly by quality-of-discharge-teaching grade: insufficient 119.88, medium 130.35, high 136.53 and very high 141.90.
03Stepwise regression identified discharge-teaching delivery, lifestyle and behaviour, and basic skills as factors associated with readiness; delivery had a beta of 0.355.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Single-centre convenience sample from one tertiary hospital, so results may not apply elsewhere. Cross-sectional design measured readiness and teaching on the same day, so it cannot show that teaching caused higher readiness. Only mothers' self-reported perceptions were collected; family members and clinicians were not assessed. 357 questionnaires were collected but 308 were valid, reducing the sample size. Data were collected on the day of discharge, and hospital stays were reported as 1 to 3 days, which may limit generalisability. 76.3% of mothers were 26 to 35 years old, so age effects may be missed. Mothers whose babies were in neonatal intensive care may have been discharged without their infants, and this was not considered.
Declared interests
The work was supported by the Seventh Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that better discharge teaching causes higher readiness. This was a cross-sectional survey measured on the discharge day, so it reports links rather than the effect of an intervention.