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Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2025 Jan;27(1):182-188.
doi: 10.1007/s12094-024-03549-7. Epub 2024 Jun 19.

The effect of narrative nursing on improving the negative emotions and quality of life of patients with moderate to severe cancer pain

Li-Hua Wu #  1 , Jia Li #  2 , Shao-Fen Jia  2 , Yan-Jing Guo  2
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

The effect of narrative nursing on improving the negative emotions and quality of life of patients with moderate to severe cancer pain

Li-Hua Wu et al. Clin Transl Oncol. 2025 Jan.

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to explore the effect of narrative nursing on improving the negative emotions, sleep quality, and quality of life of patients with moderate to severe cancer pain.

Methods: A total of 80 patients with moderate to severe cancer pain who had been hospitalized in the lymphoma oncology department in our hospital from March 2019 to September 2021 were selected as the study subjects and randomly divided into the conventional nursing and narrative nursing groups, with 40 cases in each group. A conventional nursing intervention was conducted for one group, and narrative nursing was provided for the second group in addition to the conventional nursing. The anxiety and depression, sleep quality, quality of life, and satisfaction with pain management of the patients in the two groups were compared before and after the intervention.

Results: In the narrative nursing group, the self-rating anxiety scale and self-rating depression scale scores were significantly lower than those in the conventional nursing group after the intervention (P < 0.05). The scores for sleep quality, sleep duration, sleep efficiency, and daytime dysfunction and the total Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index scores were significantly lower in the narrative nursing group compared with the conventional care group (P < 0.05). The scores for the physical function, living ability, social adaptation, and psychological status items in the Quality of Life Questionnaire Core 30 were significantly higher in the narrative nursing group than in the conventional care group (P < 0.05). The patients' satisfaction with pain management was higher in the narrative nursing group than in the conventional care group (P < 0.05).

Conclusion: Narrative nursing can alleviate the negative emotions of anxiety and depression in patients with moderate to severe cancer pain and improve their sleep quality, quality of life, and pain management satisfaction.

Keywords: Anxiety; Depression; Moderate to severe cancer pain; Narrative nursing; Quality of life; Satisfaction; Sleep quality.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethical approval and consent to participate: This study was conducted in accordance with the declaration of Helsinki. This study was conducted with approval from the Ethics Committee of Shanxi Bethune Hospital (SBQKL-2022-006). A written informed consent was obtained from all the participants. Conflict of interest: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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