Visual Guidelines and Tutoring in Pediatric Urological Surgery

The number of operations in pediatric urology performed on the basis of one day surgery has been increased tremendously over the last years. The shortening of the hospital admission intends to increase the efficacy of the health system, however at the same time puts an additional burdening regarding the postoperative care on the parents of the operated children. The parents often have no or has little experience with regards to the basic medical education. The lack of the proper tutoring in terms of possible complications, normal postoperative period may cause unnecessary patients and parents anxiety, visit to the emergency room or calls to the medical stuff, and in some case delay medical attention which can cause major surgery related complications. Visual guidelines and tutoring of the patients upon surgery may avoid these undesirable effects of the early hospital discharge

Patients and methods:

The investigators are proposing prospective study of 3 groups of patients which undergo the most often urological surgery Group 1 penile surgery, Group 2 inguinal surgery. Group 3 renal surgery required nephrostomy tube leave or drainage. Each group will be divided into two subgroups (20 patients each) with and without visual tutoring prior to the surgery. Visual tutoring will include the photograph pictures reflecting different stage of the convalescent period following surgery. The parents will be asked to answer on questionnaire regarding the level of anxiety before surgery, immediately after surgery, week and 3-6 months after surgery. The number of parents calls to the hospital staff, emergency or outpatient clinic visit will be recorded and compared between two groups. The statistical analysis will performed utilizing Graph Pad Prism version 5.00 for Windows, (Graph Pad software, San Diego, California, chi square and Fisher test), considering p value of <0.05 as significant).

Inclusion criteria

• children with indications for penile, inguinal or kidney surgery

Exclusion criteria

• prior urological procedure (recurrent cases)