A qualitative research on the experience of oral hygiene care of perioperative oral cancer patients

Abstract

Objective To understand the real experience of oral hygiene care of perioperative oral cancer patients. Methods Qualitative descriptive research was adopted. Semi-structure in depth interviews were conducted among 17 postoperative oral cancer patients. NVivo 11 was used to manage and sort out the original data, data was analyzed with the content analysis of Colaizzi. Results Six themes regarding oral hygiene care was extracted, including the diversity of methods of oral hygiene and the care provider, patients have limited knowledge about oral hygiene care and the relative education is lacking, the change of function, structure and the degree of comfort of mouth impact the oral hygiene care, patients′ feedback on oral hygiene care is complicated, patients′ oral care related emotional experience is rich, oral hygiene care experience of elderly and non-elderly patients with oral cancer has few difference. Conclusions The oral hygiene care of perioperative oral cancer patients needs to be further standardized, the instruction of patients′ oral hygiene care needs to be enhanced, more attention should be paid to the popularization of disease knowledge, so as to optimize patients care and do a good job in disease prevention. Key words: Oral neoplasm; Perioperative period; Oral care; Qualitative study