Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Feb 26, 2023; 11(6): 1330-1340
Published online Feb 26, 2023. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v11.i6.1330
Effect of continuous nursing combined with respiratory exercise nursing on pulmonary function of postoperative patients with lung cancer
Qiong-Xiang Qiu, Wen-Juan Li, Xi-Miao Ma, Xue-Hua Feng
Qiong-Xiang Qiu, Wen-Juan Li, Xi-Miao Ma, Xue-Hua Feng, Department of Thoracic Surgery, Haikou People’s Hospital, Haikou Affiliated Hospital of Central South University Xiangya School of Medicine, Haikou 570208, Hainan Province, China
Author contributions: Qiu QX and Feng XH were responsible for the concept and writing of the manuscript; Qiu QX and Li WJ analyzed the data; Li WJ and Ma XM were responsible for revising the paper; all authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by Ethics Committee of the Haikou People’s Hospital.
Informed consent statement: All study participants provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Xue-Hua Feng, BSc, Associate Chief Nurse, Department of Thoracic Surgery, Haikou People’s Hospital, Haikou Affiliated Hospital of Central South University Xiangya School of Medicine, No. 43 Renmin Avenue, Haidian Island, Haikou 570208, Hainan Province, China. fxh13700494704@163.com
Received: December 19, 2022
Peer-review started: December 19, 2022
First decision: January 9, 2023
Revised: January 16, 2023
Accepted: February 3, 2023
Article in press: February 3, 2023
Published online: February 26, 2023
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Lung cancer is a malignant tumor with high morbidity and mortality among cancers. Surgery is currently one of the primary methods of treating lung cancer. Although it can slow down the progression of the disease by removing the lesion, this invasive surgery inevitably damages the integrity of the patient’s chest. Moreover, the patient’s pulmonary function may have a low compensatory capacity after surgery, causing various respiratory diseases such as atelectasis, respiratory function decline, and even serious cardiovascular disease. All of these have great negative impacts on the surgical effect and the prognosis of patients. With the continuous exploration and development of nursing, continuous nursing and respiratory exercise nursing have been gradually applied in the nursing of patients after lung cancer surgery, and have achieved good nursing results.

AIM

To investigate the effect of continuous nursing combined with respiratory exercise nursing on the pulmonary function of postoperative patients with lung cancer.

METHODS

A total of 80 patients with lung cancer who underwent surgery in our hospital from January 2021 to December 2021 were selected as the study subjects. All subjects were randomly divided into the control group (n = 40 cases) and the experimental group (n = 40 cases). Patients with lung cancer in the control group were given conventional nursing after surgery, while the experimental group was given continuous nursing combined with respiratory exercise nursing based on conventional nursing. The recovery of pulmonary function and respiratory symptoms was observed before and after 3 mo of intervention in both groups. The pulmonary function parameters, blood gas analysis, MD Anderson Symptom Inventory-lung cancer module (MDASI-LC) scores, incidence of pulmonary complications, and Morisky compliance scores were compared between the two groups before and after 3 mo of intervention.

RESULTS

There was no significant difference in pulmonary function and blood gas analysis between the two groups before intervention (P > 0.05). 3 mo after the intervention, the pulmonary function parameters in the experimental group (SpO2, VC, MVV, FEV1, FEV1% pred, and FEV1/FVC) were higher than those in the control group, and the differences were statistically significant (P < 0.05). There was no significant difference in blood gas analysis between the two groups before intervention (P > 0.05). PaO2 in the experimental group was significantly higher than that in the control group, and PaCO2 was significantly lower than that in the control group 3 mo after the intervention. The difference had statistical significance (P < 0.05). 3 mo after the intervention, the MDASI score of respiratory symptoms in the experimental group was significantly lower than that in the control group (P < 0.05), and the incidence of pulmonary complications was lower than that in the control group (P < 0.05). In addition, the treatment compliance and nursing satisfaction of patients in the experimental group were higher than those in the control group, and the differences were statistically significant (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

Continuous nursing combined with respiratory exercise nursing can significantly accelerate the recovery of respiratory function in postoperative lung cancer patients, reduce the incidence of postoperative complications of lung cancer as well as improve the treatment compliance of patients.

Keywords: Postoperative lung cancer, Continuous nursing, Respiratory exercise nursing, Pulmonary function

Core Tip: Lung cancer is a malignant tumor disease with high morbidity and mortality among cancers. Continuous nursing and respiratory exercise nursing is a new nursing model, which can improve the long-term prognosis of patients with lung cancer and improve their life quality. Unfortunately, continuous nursing and respiratory exercise nursing for postoperative lung cancer patients are not widely studied. We collected 80 patients with lung cancer and observed the recovery of pulmonary function and respiratory symptoms after 3 mo of continuous nursing and respiratory exercise nursing. The results found that continuous nursing combined with respiratory exercise nursing could significantly accelerate the recovery of respiratory function, reduce the occurrence of postoperative complications of lung cancer, and improve patients’ treatment compliance after lung cancer surgery.