The Effect of Patient Education and Rehabilitation on Quality of Life in Patients With Permanent Stomas

Construction of an ostomy is a radical treatment with permanent physical signs of body alteration. It leads to loss of a central and very personal bodily function (excretion of faeces through the rectum) and there is a significant change in personal hygiene.

Having a colostomy is not a uniform state but is characterized by many different factors: Several types of ostomy, several underlying causes that lead to stoma creation such as cancer, several individual psychosocial profile, which naturally affect individuals differently. Patients are forced to living with a changed body image, a change in daily routines, and for some there will also be changes in lifestyle, social standing and their sexuality will be affected. At the same time patients experience a break when they are discharged from the hospital, and they may lack the practical and emotional support.

The training and education of patients is increasingly being carried out by stoma nurses both in Denmark and internationally. The primary role is to inform and prepare patients before surgery and to keep the contact with patients after surgery to ensure the fulfillment of the patient´s independent and meaningful life after ostomy construction. It is assumed that ostomy nurse's intervention and involvement are important for the patient's quality of life, but there are no studies that uniquely identifies the type of education that has the greatest effect, which applies both to content and methods.

Quality of life measurement in health care is a merging method to ensure the patient´s perspective on health treatments.It is greatly needed to test the efficacy of nursing interventions on patients' quality of life. Pressure on health services increase which makes it imperative also to include analysis and calculation of economic effect of the intervention.