Results from a retrospective analysis indicate that health education, using a clinical nursing pathway, results in a more effective understanding of ovarian cancer, reduced psychological burden, improved sleep quality, decreased incidence of complications, improved self-care agency, and improved quality of life among patients with ovarian cancer.
A retrospective study investigated the effect of health education on several parameters, including self-care agency, quality of life, negative emotions, and nursing satisfaction among patients with ovarian carcinoma. Results of this analysis were published in the American Journal of Translational Research.
The study identified patients with stage I or II ovarian carcinoma, aged between 30 and 60 years, treated at a hospital in China from January 2019 to January 2020; the clinical data for these patients were analyzed. Patients were classified into 2 groups: a control group that received health education per routine nursing, and an observation group that received the intervention via a specified clinical nursing pathway. Several parameters were analyzed between the 2 groups before and after the intervention, including postoperative complications such as deep vein thrombosis; self-care agency score; quality-of-life score, as evaluated by the Quality-of-Life Questionnaire-30; and health knowledge, as assessed by an ovarian carcinoma knowledge questionnaire. Sleep quality, as evaluated by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index; negative emotions, as assessed by the Hamilton Anxiety Scale and Hamilton Depression Scale; and nursing satisfaction were also assessed.
A total of 61 patients were included in the study; 31 patients were included in the control group and 30 patients in the observation group. Following the health education intervention, patients in the observation group showed significantly higher levels of health knowledge and lower incidence of postoperative complications than those in the control group. The scores of negative emotions and sleep quality were significantly decreased in both groups after intervention compared with those before intervention (P <.05), and scores in the observation group were significantly lower than those in the control group (P <.05). Similarly, scores of self-care agency and quality of life were significantly higher after intervention than before intervention (P <.05); moreover, patients in the observation group showed higher scores than those in the control group (P <.05). Patients indicated that overall nursing satisfaction was relatively high.
Based on these results, the investigators concluded that health education intervention via a clinical nursing pathway can yield a more effective understanding of ovarian cancer, reduced psychological burden, improved sleep quality, decreased incidence of complications, improved self-care agency, and improved quality of life among patients with ovarian cancer.
Source: Zhao J, Chai G, Yang F, et al. Analysis of the change of clinical nursing pathway in health education among patients with ovarian carcinoma. Am J Transl Res. 2021;13:3138-3146.