The Effect of Implementing Appreciative Inquiry Strategy on the Early Mobilization`s Quality in Patients in Open Heart Intensive Care Unit in a Military Hospital

Most of the complications after heart surgery are related to immobility. Early mobilization helps prevent these problems from occurring. Despite the awareness of the importance of early mobilization, its implementation rate is still low due to the presence of many obstacles. Appreciative inquiry has been introduced as a key strategy for creating change. This study aimed to investigate the effect of the implementation of an appreciative inquiry strategy on the quality of early mobilization.

This clinical trial research was conducted in Tehran Jamaran Hospital on 98 patients undergoing open heart surgery in 1401. The sampling method was purpose-based based on the inclusion criteria. The quality of early mobilization of the patients was evaluated using a researcher-made checklist, which was validated. The intervention in the test group was carried out in the form of focused group discussions of four people regarding the strategy of appreciative inquiry for the implementation of Early mobilization of patients. The leaders of the open-heart intensive care unit, including the head of the department, his deputy, and the heads of the shifts participated in the discussions. The results were analyzed by statistical software SPSS version 22 using independent t, Mann-Whitney, and chi-square tests and analysis of variance.

The findings showed that the patients of the two test and control groups had no significant differences in terms of demographic characteristics, surgery characteristics, history of smoking and drug use, and underlying diseases. The results of checking the checklist scores using chi-square test showed that with the implementation of the Appreciative inquiry strategy among department leaders, the average score of the checklist for the quality of the implementation of the Early mobilization process went from 8/4 (±1/4) in the control group to 11/6 (±1/4) in the test group (P<0.001).

This study showed that the implementation of the appreciative inquiry strategy is effective in changing the approach of nurses regarding early mobilization and consequently creating a positive change for the implementation of this process. Considering the need to change the approach in different areas of nursing, including early mobilization, it is recommended This strategy can be used in nursing with the aim of creating positive changes.