Transitional care based on the Omaha system in postoperative rehabilitation of patients with breast cancer

Abstract

Objective To explore the application of transitional care based on the Omaha system in postoperative rehabilitation of patients with breast cancer. Methods Seventy-two patients after radical mastectomy were assigned into two groups according to admission time, patients from June to December 2011 were set as the control group, patients from February to December 2012 were assigned to the intervention group, each group contained 36 patients. The patients in the control group received routine nursing, while patients in the intervention group were implemented transitional care program with Omaha system as framework from before discharge to 6-week follow-up after discharge from hospital. Nursing effect was compared between two groups from three aspects such as cognition, behavior and status. Results Twenty-three problems were found in the 6-week follow-up for the intervention group, including environmental domain, psychosocial domain, physiological domain and health-related behavior domain. Knowledge, behavior and status scores of the intervention group 6 weeks after discharge were significantly higher than those of the control group [(3.92±0.48)scores vs.(2.41±0.17)scores, (4.11±0.49)scores vs.(2.83±0.25)scores, (3.09±0.52)scores vs.(2.32±0.39)scores,t=14.81, 15.36, 9.42,P<0.01 or 0.05]. Conclusions Transitional care based on the Omaha system shows common problems in rehabilitation of patients with breast cancer after operation, and provides standardized program for rehabilitation nursing. It can achieve better nursing effect. Key words: Breast neoplasms; Rehabilitation; Transitional care; Omaha system