Development of a Nursing Practice Guideline for Pre and Post-Operative Care of Gastric Cancer Patients

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to develop nursing practice guidelines and algorithms for the pre- and postoperative care of gastric cancer patients. METHODS The guidelines and algorithms were developed based on a literature review and subject-matter experts' knowledge. The usefulness and applicability of the developed guidelines and algorithms were evaluated by the expert group. RESULTS The guidelines comprised 64 recommendations and algorithms for admission care, preoperative care on the day before the operation, preoperative care on the operation day, immediate postoperative assessment, postoperative care, and discharge care of gastric cancer patients. After appropriate evaluation, the experts declared the guidelines to be both useful and applicable. CONCLUSIONS The guidelines developed in this study can be used for patient care and for training nursing students and novice nurses. In addition, these guidelines can be integrated into the electronic nursing record system for clinical decision support in the future. This will improve the quality of clinical nursing and the expertise of nurses.