ObjectiveTo explore and analyze the current situation of discharge readiness and delayed discharge for patients undergoing ambulatory thyroid malignancy surgery.MethodsBy convenient sampling, 284 thyroid malignancy patients who were admitted to the day surgery ward of Xiangya Hospital, Central South University from September 1st to December 30th, 2018 were selected as the research objects. The general information questionnaire and Readiness for Hospital Discharge Scale (RHDS) were used as the research tools. Descriptive statistical analysis was used to analyze the demographic statistics of the patients, and the differences of different dimension scores and total scores of RHDS were analyzed based on the basic information of patients.ResultsThe total score of RHDS was 8.66±0.60 for patients, including 6.31±0.74 for dimension of physical condition, 9.49±0.87 for dimension of disease knowledge, 9.20±0.99 for dimension of coping ability after discharge, and 9.63±0.74 for dimension of expected social support. The delayed discharge rate was 2.1%. There was no significant difference in the scores of different dimensions or total scores in RHDS of patients undergoing ambulatory thyroid malignancy surgery with different gender, age, education level or whether there was a special person to take care of them (P>0.05). There were differences between patients with delayed discharge and the ones without delayed discharge in the three dimensions namely physical condition, disease knowledge, and coping ability, as well as the total scores (P<0.05), while there was no statistically significant difference in the scores of expected social support dimension (P>0.05).ConclusionsThe discharge readiness for patients undergoing ambulatory thyroid malignancy surgery is good. The medical staff should provide health intervention measures according to the specific situation of patients, so as to improve the quality of discharge guidance, and ensure the safety of patients.