Background: The transition from hospital to home is a critical period during which patients are vulnerable to health risks. For individuals with chronic lung disease, patient-centered discharge preparation is essential to prevent frequent readmissions...
Background: The transition from hospital to home is a critical period during which patients are vulnerable to health risks. For individuals with chronic lung disease, patient-centered discharge preparation is essential to prevent frequent readmissions and to maintain long-term self-care at home. Effective communication between healthcare providers and patients, along with high-quality discharge education, plays a key role in this process. Shared decision-making (SDM), as a patient-centered communication approach, may serve as a potential strategy to enhance readiness for hospital discharge. However, limited evidence exists on the direct effects of SDM and the quality of discharge teaching on discharge readiness among patients with chronic lung disease. Objective: This study aimed to identify the influence of patients’ perceived SDM and the quality of discharge teaching on readiness for hospital discharge among patients transitioning from hospital to home.
Methods: This descriptive correlational study was conducted with 92 patients with chronic lung disease who were discharged from a tertiary hospital in Seoul, Korea. Data were collected using structured questionnaires, including the CollaboRATE scale for SDM, the Quality of Discharge Teaching Scale (QDTS), and the Readiness for Hospital Discharge Scale (RHDS). Multiple linear regression analysis was performed to examine the effects of SDM and quality of discharge teaching on readiness for discharge, controlling for age, living situation (living with family), length of hospital stay, and dyspnea score at discharge (mMRC score at discharge).
Results: The participants reported positive experiences of SDM (mean=9.85/12) and quality of discharge teaching (mean=7.58/10) and perceived a moderate level of readiness for discharge (mean=6.86/10). Among the RHDS subdomains, knowledge(mean=7.57), perceived coping ability (mean=7.09), and expected support (mean=7.08) were moderate or higher, whereas personal status was relatively low(mean=5.65). SDM showed moderate positive correlations with the subdomains of discharge teaching (content: ρ = .535; delivery: ρ = .530) and a weak positive correlation with discharge readiness (ρ = .219). In the multiple linear regression analysis, the model explained approximately 37.8% of the variance in readiness for discharge (adjusted R² = .378, p < .001). Among the predictors, only the content subscale of discharge teaching was identified as a significant positive predictor of readiness for discharge (β = .583, p = .002), whereas SDM, the delivery subscale, age, living situation, length of hospital stay, and dyspnea score at discharge were not statistically significant.
Conclusions: Readiness for hospital discharge among patients with chronic lung disease was closely associated with their discharge education experience, and in particular, the adequacy of discharge teaching content was confirmed as a key factor influencing readiness for discharge. Although SDM was not an independent predictor in the final regression model, its positive correlations with both the quality of discharge teaching and readiness for discharge suggest that it remains an important element to consider in patient-centered discharge education. These findings highlight the need to integrate SDM processes that reflect patients’ values and preferences into the design of discharge education and to strengthen patient-tailored educational content based on disease characteristics and functional status. The study provides empirical evidence supporting the importance of patient-centered discharge education in enhancing discharge readiness during transitional care among patients with chronic lung disease.