(HealthDay)—Mentoring programs can help improve patients’ transition from hospital to home by reducing their postoperative anxiety following a transplant, according to a study published online Jan. 17 in the Journal of Operations Management.
Yeojun Chun, from The Ohio State University in Columbus, and colleagues evaluated a standardized peer-mentoring program where former patients mentor current patients for 30 days postdischarge. They enrolled 80 transplant patients randomly assigned to either mentoring or usual care.
The researchers found that patients in the treatment arm experienced a 3.42-point greater decrease in the anxiety score over 30 days. Unexpectedly, patients in the treatment arm had a 12.6 times greater risk for readmission during the first 30 days. The investigators suggested this finding was due to patients reporting complications sooner and getting treated earlier.
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