Retrospective Comparison of Post Operative Recovery in Patients with and Without Preoperative Nutritional Support

Abstract

Background: Preoperative nutritional therapy is increasingly exposed to improve surgical patients' postoperative recovery. This retrospective comparison study examined selective surgery patients' hospital stays and wound healing times.

Methods: The study separated 100 adult patients into two groups and assigned them preoperative nutritional supplementation from June 2023 to May 2024. Hospital stays and wound healing durations were the main retrospective data points from electronic medical records. We utilised independent t-tests for continuous variables and chi-square tests for categorical variables.

Results: Patients who received nutritional support before surgery had significantly shorter hospital stays (5.2 days vs. 6.8 days, p < 0.01) and faster wound healing (10 days vs. 12 days, p = 0.03). In the dietary help group, a 20% reduction in complications was not statistically significant (p = 0.12). It was found that patients in the food support group were happier (4.5 ± 0.8 vs. 4.2 ± 0.9, p = 0.07).

Conclusion: This study shows that consuming vitamin supplements before surgery can help with recovery after surgery by reducing the length of hospital stays and speeding up wound healing. To improve surgical outcomes and patient healing, these results stress how important it is to check a patient's nutrition before surgery and offer nutritional support during treatment.