Effect of comprehensive nursing intervention on wound pain and wound complications in patients with tonsillectomy: A meta-analysis

To systematically evaluate the effects of comprehensive nursing interventions on wound pain and complications in patients after tonsillectomy, with a view to providing a reference basis for future post-tonsillectomy care. According to the developed literature search strategy, PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Embase, Wanfang, China Biomedical Literature Database and China National Knowledge Infrastructure database were systematically searched, from database inception to October 2023, for randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of the application of comprehensive nursing interventions in patients undergoing tonsillectomy. Two researchers independently screened the literature, evaluated the risk of bias of the included studies and extracted data in strict accordance with the inclusion and exclusion criteria. RevMan 5.4 software was applied for data analysis. Overall, 18 RCTs involving 1954 patients were included, including 967 in the comprehensive nursing group and 987 in the conventional nursing group. The analyses revealed that compared with conventional nursing, patients who received comprehensive nursing interventions had lower postoperative wound pain scores (standardised mean difference [SMD]: -2.30, 95% confidence interval [CI]: -2.19 to -1.70, p < 0.00001), shorter hospital stays (SMD: -1.95, 95% CI: -2.39 to -1.51, p < 0.00001), incidence of postoperative haemorrhage (1.60% vs. 6.41%, odds ratio [OR]: 0.29, 95% CI: 0.12-0.70, p = 0.006) and complication rates (4.21% vs. 19.01%, OR: 0.19, 95% CI: 0.11-0.32, p < 0.00001) was lower. This study concludes as follows: comprehensive nursing intervention applied to tonsillectomy can significantly reduce patients' postoperative wound pain, shorten hospital stay, reduce postoperative bleeding and postoperative complications, which is worthy of being promoted and applied in the clinic.