Effect of continued nursing support on speech intelligibility and the quality of life in postoperative patients with tongue cancer

Abstract

Objective To research and analysis the effect of continued nursing support on speech intelligibility and the quality of life in postoperative patients with tongue cancer. Methods A total of 80 patients treated in our hospital with tongue cancer from May 2014 to August 2016 were selected and randomly divided into the intervention group and the control group in accordance with the convenience sampling method, 40 cases in each group. All patients received the same health guidance education after discharge according to care routine.At the same time, the patients in the intervention group received the continued nursing support. Intervention effects were observed in two groups by using the Chinese speech intelligibility test table and the University of Washington Quality of Life Questionnaire (UW-QOLv4). Results One day before the operation, the speech intelligibility (94.8±4.9) scores, the survival quality (1 076.3±51.9) scores in the intervention group compared to the scores (96.0±3.2, 1 084.7±46.5) in the control group,there were no statistical difference (t=-1.297,-0.762, both P>0.05). Two weeks after the operation, there were also no statistical difference (t=1.136,P>0.05) on the speech intelligibility scores between the intervention group (33.7±3.1) and the control group(32.9±3.2). One month,three months and six months after the operation, the scores in the intervention group(61.2±2.7,79.5±4.3,90.9±2.4 respectively) were much higher than that in the control group(49.6±2.4,63.6±3.8, 78.6±3.5) with significant difference (t=20.309,17.524,18.331, all P<0.05).Six months after the operation,the scores in the intervention group(786.4±67.1) were much higher than that in the control group (597.6±58.2) with significant difference(t=13.443,P<0.05). Conclusions The implementation of continued nursing support can effectively improve speech intelligibility and the quality of postoperative survival in patients with tongue cancer. Key words: Tongue neoplasms; Quality of life; Continued nursing; Speech intelligibility