Self-care activities for postdischarge nausea and vomiting.

Postdischarge nausea and vomiting (PDNV) is a serious threat to the recovery of ambulatory surgical patients. Pharmacological interventions available before discharge are not readily available to the patient after discharge; therefore, the activities that patients perform to manage new-onset PDNV may affect their surgical recovery. Assembled from a comprehensive study of PDNV, this paper describes the self-care activities that ambulatory patients use to manage new-onset nausea and vomiting after discharge.

Evaluation of the Rhodes Index of Nausea and Vomiting for ambulatory surgery patients.

Background: The Index of Nausea and Vomiting (INV), developed by Rhodes and others in 1984, measures three dimensions of upper gastrointestinal distress: nausea, vomiting and retching (NVR). While the revised version has been tested with a variety of high-risk populations, there are no data suggesting that it can be used to assess upper gastrointestinal distress among the growing numbers of ambulatory or day surgery patients.

Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate a modified version of the INV for use with ambulatory surgery patients.