Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice of Bathing Care Among Patients with a Stoma and Their Correlations With Quality of Life: A Cross-sectional Study

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the knowledge, attitude, and practice of bathing care among patients with a stoma and to examine the correlations between bathing care and patients' quality of life. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted, involving 663 patients with a stoma from 22 tertiary hospitals across 7 provinces in East China. A self-designed Knowledge-Attitude-Practice of Bathing Questionnaire and City of Hope-Quality of Life-Ostomy Questionnaire were used. Data were analyzed following descriptive statistics, t test, analysis of variance, and ordinal logistic regression. RESULTS: Patients with a stoma demonstrate a moderate level of knowledge, attitude, and practice of bathing care. Educational level, marital status, primary caregiver, time after surgery, stoma-related complications, and primary bathing method were identified as independent influencing factors for bathing care in patients with stoma (P<.05). A positive correlation was found between bathing care and quality of life (r=0.434; P<.01). CONCLUSIONS: Bathing practices of patients with a stoma were affected by the presence of a stoma, and the level of bathing care was closely linked to the quality of life. In clinical practice, nurses should pay greater attention to bathing issues for patients during education and follow-up. Future studies should focus on developing interventions to improve the bathing-care abilities and quality of life among these patients.