Abstract:

This was a retrospective study. The information and data of 135 patients with spinal tuberculosis, who received treatment at the Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery Department of the 8th Medical Center, PLA General Hospital from January 2017 to July 2019, were analyzed. Among them, 72 patients received routine nursing care after surgery from January 2017 to June 2018 while 63 patients received joint relaxation training (including abdominal breathing, meditation, and muscles relaxation) as the postoperative nursing care method from July 2018 to July 2019. From each of the above-mentioned patient groups, 40 cases were randomly selected respectively as the control group and the observation group. Visual analogue scale (VAS) was used to evaluate the degree of postoperative pain in the patients. In the observation group, the VAS scores in the patients were 4.22±0.81 and 2.22±0.72 respectively on postoperative Day 3 and 1 week, which were lower than those in the control group patients (4.98±1.12 on postoperative Day 3 and 2.98±1.04 at 1 week after the operation), and the differences were statistically significant (t=3.478, P=0.001; t=3.800, P=0.000). At two weeks after the operation, the scores of self-rating Anxiety scale and self-rating Depression scale in the observation group patients were 44.68±3.47 and 44.74±3.53, which were lower than those in the control group patients (47.84±3.58 and 47.17±3.50). The differences were statistically significant respectively (t=4.009, P=0.000; t=3.092, P=0.003). The Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) scores in the observation group at 2 weeks after the operation was 5.65±2.40, the sleep time at 24 hours and 48 hours after the operation were (5.92±0.76) h and (6.47±0.96) h in the observation group, which were much better than those in the control group (6.98±1.12, (5.44±0.71) h, (5.71±0.81) h), and the differences were statistically significant (t=3.176, P=0.002; t=2.919, P=0.005; t=3.827, P=0.000). This study showed that the joint relaxation training with abdominal breathing, meditation and muscles relaxation to the postoperative patients with spinal tuberculosis can relieve pain and psychological pressure of the patients, improve their sleep quality.

Key words: Tuberculosis, spinal, Relaxation training, Pain, postoperative, Anxiety, Comparative study