Effectiveness of Pictorial Comics in Enhancing Home Self-Management Among Individuals with Permanent Colostomy Following Colorectal Cancer Surgery

PURPOSE: To evaluate the effectiveness of pictorial comics as a supplementary educational tool for home-based self-management in patients with a permanent colostomy after colorectal cancer surgery. DESIGN: A two-arm, non-randomized comparative study. METHODS: A total of 104 patients were enrolled and divided by admission date into a control group (n=52) receiving standard education and an experimental group (n=52) receiving additional pictorial comics education. Outcomes included stoma self-care ability, psychosocial adaptation, quality of life, and complication incidence, assessed before discharge and at 1, 3, and 6 months post-discharge. Two patients dropped out, leaving 51 per group for analysis. FINDINGS: The experimental group had significantly higher scores in self-care ability, adaptation, and quality of life at all time points (all p<0.05), and significantly lower stoma-related complication rates (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Pictorial comics education can effectively improve self-care capacity, accelerate psychosocial adaptation, enhance quality of life, and reduce complications. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: As a low-cost, intuitive tool, pictorial comics simplify medical information, improve understanding and adherence for middle-aged and older patients, reduce nursing burden, and optimize clinical outcomes.