Quality of Life of Patients with Stoma: A descriptive study

Aim: Stoma opening causes patients to experience various problems in terms of physiological, social, psychological, and sexual aspects. All these problems negatively affect the quality of life (QoL) of patients; thus, this study aimed to evaluate the QoL of patients with a stoma.Method: This descriptive cross-sectional study includes 115 patients with a stoma for at least 3 months. Data were collected using the City of Hope Ostomy QoL Questionnaire between March 2015 and June 2016. Approval from the ethics committee and informed consent from participants were obtained. Descriptive statistics, Kruskal-Wallis test, Student t-test, and Mann-Whitney U test were used.Results: Of the 115 participants, the duration of stoma was 17.5±23.2 months. A colostomy is present in 54.8% of patients, ileostomy in 47.8%, and urostomy in 6.1%. The overall QoL score was 5.37±1.32, with subscale scores as follows: physical 4.42±2.78, psychological 5.33±1.45, social 5.37±1.32, and spiritual 6.97±1.70. A statistically significant difference was found between psychological, social subscale, and overall QoL scores of patients with a permanent and temporary stoma (p<0.05), and between psychological subscale score of patients receiving adjuvant chemotherapy and those who do not (p<0.05).Conclusion: The overall QoL of patients was adversely affected, especially the physical aspect. Patient-centered nursing interventions should be planned to improve the QoL of patients in the context of holistic nursing care.