Psychological care for patients with advanced lung cancer

Most patients with advanced lung cancer suffer from pain due to tumor invasion of the pleura. The implementation of patient-controlled analgesia can improve the quality of life of patients. However, with varying degrees of pain and the use of PCA analgesia, patients often show anxiety, boredom, fear, sadness, loneliness and despair. Therefore, it is particularly important to provide psychological care for patients' pain. How to provide psychological care for patients with advanced lung cancer?

(1) Psychological analysis and care of anxiety and depression

Pain itself can easily cause anxiety and boredom. In addition, the unfamiliar environment of the hospital, the lack of obvious cancer treatment effects, and the heavy economic burden are all factors that cause anxiety and boredom. To help patients relieve this emotion, it is necessary to start from the specific situation of each patient and do targeted psychological counseling. Give comfort and understanding to the patient's psychological fluctuations, enhance the relationship between nurses and patients, and become the patient's confidant; at the same time, consider their economic affordability as much as possible, and choose appropriate diagnosis and treatment plans to reduce the negative emotions caused by the economic burden. If the nurse-patient relationship is good, even if the patient's anxiety problem is unwilling to be told to his family, he can tell the nursing staff. At this time, active symptomatic treatment can stabilize the patient's mood.

(2) Psychological analysis and care of despair

It is more common in patients in the middle and late stages. Because the patient's mental burden and pressure are too heavy, it is easy to feel desperate and lose the courage to continue treatment. At this time, the nurse should patiently do ideological work and inform the patient about the mechanism of tumor occurrence, prevention and treatment methods and results. Guide the patient to correctly understand the disease and keep a calm mood; face the disease with a positive attitude, strengthen self-positive suggestion, prevent negative suggestion, and cooperate with the treatment with a good mental state; at the same time, do a good job in the work of the patient's family. The family's attention and care for the patient will make the patient feel warm and loving; the optimistic mood of the family has a great influence on the patient, so that the patient has the courage to face the reality and accept further treatment.

(3) Psychological analysis and care of sadness and self-pity

Some patients think that they can no longer live like before and need help from others, which hurts their self-esteem. They often show sadness and self-pity, and sometimes lose their temper for no reason or vent their inner resentment to medical staff or family members. Nurses should understand and tolerate patients, actively communicate with patients, understand their psychological problems in time, and correctly answer their questions; comfort patients with sincere and kind words, encourage patients with good examples, and emphasize the initiative of patients in pain control during the implementation of PCA analgesia; strive to change patients' negative psychology, stimulate their initiative, and change their bad mood; in addition, help patients establish self-regulatory psychological ability, so that they can correctly understand the disease and actively cooperate with treatment. Do a good job of family work to obtain the cooperation of family members, persuade family members not to care about the words of patients when they lose their temper, and give patients the warmth of family, which is very important to relieve patients' helpless and self-pitying psychology.

(4) Fear psychology analysis and care

Due to the lack of correct understanding of the disease, the impact of surgery, the poor prognosis of cancer, and the special atmosphere of the hospital can all cause patients to develop a fearful mentality. In order to overcome this fear of patients, nurses must first give patients strong psychological support, and with a kind and patient attitude, make patients trust medical staff and have a sense of security; at the same time, they must care and be considerate of patients, encourage them to face reality bravely, adapt to life, eliminate psychological burdens, and actively participate in analgesia. For the use of opioids, patients are often afraid of drug dependence or addiction while fearing drug overdose. At this time, patients should be patiently explained that a small amount of painkillers will not cause addiction, as long as the pain is controlled, the drug will be stopped, and even if addiction occurs, it can be treated. It should be emphasized that pain relief treatment is conducive to the body's recovery, and most pain patients use painkillers for more benefits than disadvantages. In addition, patients are often worried about the effects and side effects of drugs, and nurses should answer various questions raised by patients in a timely and patient manner.

Patients with advanced lung cancer very much hope to receive comfort from their relatives and friends and to communicate with fellow patients. Therefore, when patients are admitted to the hospital, nurses should promptly help patients establish new interpersonal relationships. By introducing patients to roommates, they can relieve patients' unfamiliarity with the environment and quickly establish good relationships with fellow patients. This can also enable fellow patients to comfort and support each other, which will achieve twice the result with half the effort.

The above introduces the psychological care of patients with advanced lung cancer. In short, experts remind that through the careful observation, analysis and meticulous care of nursing staff and the patients' family members and friends, the fear, despair and suspicion of patients can be eliminated, so that they can maintain a stable mood, actively cooperate with treatment, and have confidence in defeating the disease, thus achieving good treatment results. Therefore, nurses should provide timely and effective psychological counseling and behavioral intervention according to the different psychology of lung cancer patients, help patients eliminate the misconception that cancer equals death, maintain a good mental state, improve the quality of life, and prolong survival.