Comfort nursing can alleviate pain and negative emotion of patients after surgery for LVCFs and improve their living ability.

OBJECTIVE

To determine the effect of comfort nursing in elderly patients with lumbar vertebral compression fractures (LVCFs).

METHODS

A total of 194 elderly patients with LVCFs were enrolled, and assigned to two groups based on different nursing intervention methods. Among them, 93 patients were given routine nursing intervention as a control group (CON group), while the rest 101 patients were given comfort nursing as an intervention group (INT group). The visual analog scale (VAS) was adopted to evaluate patients' pain and Japanese Orthopaedic Association score (JOA) to evaluate their dysfunction. In addition, Barthel score was used to evaluate patients' self-care ability, and the self-rating anxiety scale (SAS) and self-rating depression scale (SDS) were adopted to score their anxiety and depression. Moreover, the compliance and nursing satisfaction of the two groups were investigated.

RESULTS

After nursing, t VAS, SAS, and SDS scores of both groups declined significantly, and these scores of the INT group declined more notably. After nursing, the JOA and Barthel scores of the two groups increased greatly, and both scores of the INT group were significantly higher than those of the CON group. Additionally, the INT group consumed significantly less analgesic drugs and experienced significantly shorter hospital stay than the CON group. Moreover, according to the survey on nursing compliance and nursing satisfaction, the INT group showed significantly higher nursing compliance and nursing satisfaction than the CON group.

CONCLUSION

For elderly patients with LVCFs, comfort nursing can effectively relieve their postoperative pain and negative emotion and improve their daily living ability.