Effect of therapeutic caress combined with mental nursing on stress response of patients with thyroid surgery

Abstract

Objective To investigate the effect of therapeutic caress (TC) combined with mental nursing on stress response of patients with thyroid surgery. Methods A total of 64 patients, who underwent thyroid surgery in our hospital from January 2012 to January 2014, were randomly divided into observation group and control group, 32 patients in each group. The patients of control group were treated with normal surgery nursing while the patients of observation group were treated with TC combined with mental nursing on basis of normal surgery nursing. Heart rate (HR), systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP, DBP), and change of blood glucose (BG) were compared; mental health assessed by self-rating anxiety scale (SAS) and self-rating depression scale (SDS) scores before and after nursing intervention; the VAS pain score at 6h and 24h after operation were compared between the two groups. Results Before anesthesia in the control group, the SBP was (127.4±10.6)mmHg, HR (78.6±6.7) time/min higher than these of observation group (t=-2.424, -2.290; P<0.05); 2 hours after operation, SBP was (123.7±11.8) mmHg, the same trend with above compared with observation group (t=-2.367, P<0.05). 1 day after openation SAS, SDS scores were (32.6±9.7) and (31.2±10.1) in the observation group lower than these of the control group (t=2.369, 2.292; P<0.05). 6 hours after operation in the observation group, the pain score of VAS was (2.47±1.18) and (3.84±1.26) in the control group (t=2.481, P<0.05). Conclusions TC combined with mental nursing mode can effectively alleviate the psychological and physiological stress response in patients with thyroid surgery, obviously relieve the pain after operation, and thereby improve the postoperative rehabilitation. Key words: Mental nursing; Thyroid surgery; Therapeutic caress; Stress response