The Effects of Caring Nursing Applying Swanson’s Theory on Well-being of the Elderly with Head and Neck Cancer Receiving Surgery

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of nursing care based on Swanson’s theory of caring on the well-being of older people with head and neck cancer surgery. The sample consisted of 40 older adults, male and female, receiving in-patient care, including surgery, for diagnosed head and neck cancer at the critical care and surgery department of Chonburi Cancer Hospital, from November 2022 to June 2023.. Simple random sampling was used to assign equal numbers of older adults to control and experimental groups. The experimental group received the Swanson’s care regime for 10 days, with nursing care divided into three phases: pre- surgery care, care after surgery, and pre discharge. Five activities were focused on, based on Swanson’s concept: 1) maintaining belief, 2) knowing, 3) being with, 4) doing for, and 5) enabling. The control group received usual nursing care. The instruments used to collect data were a personal interview, patient medical history, and a well-being assessment form for head and neck cancer patients, which had a reliability of .91. The data were analyzed using frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviations, and independent t-tests. The results revealed that the post-test mean score of well-being of the experimental group was significantly higher than that of the pre-test and the post-test of the control group (p< .05). Based on these findings, it is recommended that registered nurses apply Swanson’s caring theory to enhance the well-being of older people with head and neck cancer undergoing surgery.