Impact of Instructional Guidelines on Patients' Knowledge and Anxiety Regarding Cardiac Catheterization' Complications

Background: Cardiac catheterization is a medical procedure that helps doctors examine the heart
and its blood vessels in detail. Cardiac catheterization has several complications that embrace the
following: infection, injury, and pain at the Intra Venous site (IV) or sheath insertion site, blood
clots, and harming urinary organs may occur because of the distinction dye common in kidney
disease and patients with Diabetes Mellitus (DM). Ensuring patient safety, and preventing harm
during healthcare, is crucial, especially after this procedure. Hence, the study aimed to evaluate
the impact of instructional guidelines on patients' knowledge and anxiety regarding cardiac
catheterization' complications. Subjects and method: Design: A quasi-experimental research
design was used with a pre-and post-test. Setting: the research was conducted in the Cardiac
Catheterization Unit. Subjects: A purposive sample of all 100 patients in two groups with 50
patients who were willing to participate in the study, and patients who were admitted were included
and divided into two equal groups, the experimental group who received instructional guidelines
and the control group received routine care instructions. Two tools were used: Tool (I) An
interviewing questionnaire, which included two parts: (a) Personal data; (b) knowledge assessment
data, and Tool (II) Spielberger’s State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Results: The results of this study
revealed that there were significant differences in anxiety and knowledge level among patients
undergoing cardiac catheterization in the control group compared with the experimental group after
the instructional guidelines implementation at (P < .001), besides a lower incidence of
complications among patients in the experimental group than in control group. Conclusion: The
current study concluded that instructional guidelines implementation had a significant positive
effect on improving knowledge and reducing anxiety levels and complications among the studied
patients undergoing cardiac catheterization in the experimental group than control group and lower
incidence of vascular complications among patients in the experimental group. Recommendations:
Patients should be provided with sufficient information about cardiac catheterization,
risk factors, and complications before discharge from the hospital, Training program about
complications for patients undergoing cardiac catheterization. The study should replicated on a
large sample to generalize the results with replication of the current study with a larger sample.