A quasi experimental study to see the effectiveness of oral care with ice cold saline versus room temperature saline on thirst and oral condition among post-operative patients undergone abdominal surgeries at GGS hospital, Faridkot, Punjab

Abstract

Patients often have dry mouth following abdominal surgery as they are kept NPO postoperatively for 2-3 days which also leads to thirst and changes in oral conditions. This study was undertaken to see the effectiveness of oral care with ice cold saline versus room temperature saline on thirst and oral conditions among postoperative patients’ undergone abdominal surgeries.

Material and Methods: Convenient sampling technique was used to allocate the study subjects. A sample of 60 patients who had undergone abdominal surgeries was assessed. Subjective thirst scoring and objective oral assessment (with room temperature saline in group I and ice cold normal saline in group II), pre and post intervention was done. The tool used was a structured questionnaire enquiring demographic and bio physiological profile, numeric rating scale (NRS) for thirst assessment and objective oral assessment tool for assessing oral conditions. Independent & paired ttests and Pearson’s correlations were used for inferential statistics.

Results: The study findings revealed that the mean score of the thirst levels of the subjects in the ice cold saline group experienced less thirst after the intervention as compared to the subjects in room temperature saline group. The paired t test value 5.37 of the subjective thirst assessment was found to be statistically significant at 0.00 level.

Conclusion: This study highlights the need for adopting modified oral care procedures such as use of ice cold saline for effective thirst management in post operative patients