Postoperative Comfort Scale Measures Patient Comfort After Lung Surgery

The postoperative comfort scale has good reliability and validity, and therefore can be used to assess patients with lung cancer following endoscopic surgery, according to recent study findings. Furthermore, the results of the study showed improvements in comfort after surgery are needed.

Zheng Yuan and colleagues evaluated 210 patients with lung cancer who had endoscopic surgery at a hospital in Hebei Province from September 2022 to February 2023. Patients were aged 18 to 80 years, and 85.7% had comorbidities. The surgical procedures included wedge-shaped excision of the lung under thoracoscopic guidance (51.9%), segmentectomy (9.0%), and lobectomy (39.0%).

The researchers used the 28-item scale to assess patient physiological, psychological, sociocultural, and environmental comfort. Patients were able to give one of the following responses to each question: strongly disagree, disagree, generally agree, agree, strongly agree. The overall average score of patient comfort was 3.72 ± 0.57, with scores ranging between 3.59 ± 0.71 and 3.83 ± 1.06 across all four dimensions. The lowest score was in the physiological dimension.

It is important to apply individualized interventions according to the specific conditions of the patient during clinical nursing, the researchers said. They explained that measures should be taken to reduce postoperative physiological discomfort among patients with lung cancer.