On October 1, 2004, we began postoperative home visits to patients who had been put under general anesthesia.In the initial period, there were not a few patients who went unnoticed as only their names were put in their papers for postoperative home visits. In light of this situation, we performed a questionnaire survey on the necessity of postoperative home visits with 23 nurses picked up as respondents.Of them, 15 nurses (65%) said they thought it necessary to put the paper in the due form. For improvements in the form, we decided to add another item - that is, information on the checkup of the skin. Twenty-one nurses (92%) said they thought postoperative home visits necessary, as they were much interested in the postoperative conditions of patients.As we had designated nurses in charge of postoperative home visits, the number of patients to whom postoperative home visits were not made was on the decrease. The designation of nurses in charge of postoperative home visits and the changes made in the form proved useful in our endeavor to firmly establish the system of posterative home visits.
Postoperative Period ; System ; Firm ; House Call ; checkup

Purposes: This study was conducted to ascertain the usefulness of Face Scale (FS) as a measuring tool for detemining the degree of fatigue in cancer patients and the course of nursing. The nurses' perceptions of fatigue in cancer patients before and after the installation of FS in two different wards were compared.
Subjects and Methods: A total of 41 nurses working in the Gastrointestinal and the Cancer Wards participated in this trial. They measured the degree of fatigue in cancer patients using FS daily after the routine body temperature check. When the five-month trial was over, a questionnaire survey was conducted on the nurses' perceptions of patient fatigue.
Results: The survey found 65.9% of the nurses thought that it was easier to understand the patient's degree of fatigue when the FS was used. There was no significant difference in perception between nurses in the two wards. The use of FS enabled both nurses and patients to estimate the degree of fatigue objectively and thus mutual understanding between them as to the degree of fatigue was established. Furthermore, an accurate judgment of the degree of patient fatigue contributed to the improvement of the retrospective evaluation of nursing care and an increased consciousness in nurses of the fatigue levels of cancer patients. The application of FS was also thought to contribute to the raising of nurses' awareness of the importance of assessment and evaluation of the patients' conditions.