Introduction: The prevalence of cataract surgeries ranges from 7 to 12 million cases in 2000, 20 million in 2010 and an estimation of 32 million cataract surgeries annually by the year 2020 worldwide (WHO, 2015). Traditionally, the healthcare providers were only able to give health education before the patient is discharged from the healthcare setting while follow-up can only be done when the patient comes for their follow-up. But most of the patients will remain confused or had forgotten about the post-operative care even after receiving a comprehensive discharge preparation. However, with the advancement of technologies in this modern era, nurse-led telephone follow-up can be considered as a tool to assist healthcare providers in the follow-up care in Malaysia. On the same note, a private eye specialist organisation with centres throughout Malaysia, had taken the initiative to provide telephone follow-up service for their patients with three main objectives namely, to provide pre- and post-education on cataract surgery, to detect early post cataract surgery complications as well as to minimise anxiety among their patients. However, till date no patient feedback regarding the service was conducted. Objective: The research objective for this study was to determine patient’s level of satisfaction with the nurse-led telephone follow-up after cataract surgery at a private eye specialist centre in Penang. Method: A cross sectional quantitative descriptive study design was used to study ninety post cataract patients in a private hospital, Penang through universal sampling method. A validated self-developed questionnaire based on the three main objectives of the telephone follow-up service was used for this study. Results Overall, the level of patient’s satisfaction with nurse-led telephone follow-up after cataract surgery at a private eye specialist centre in Penang was high (49.9±4.85) especially for the health education provided (4.18 ±0.21) followed by the effort to detect early complications (4.16 ±0.12) and to minimise patients’ anxiety level (4.16 ±0.12).
Patients