a colostomy or ileostomy during their training
and were therefore unprepared on qualification.
Similarly, educational textbooks such as The Royal
Marsden Manual of Clinical Nursing Procedures by
Dougherty and Lister (2015) which is there to guide
students through clinical skills, fails to acknowledge
the emotional support that patients may need
when undergoing tasks such as stoma siting which
significantly affects body image.
Furthermore, many ward nurses working on a
gastrointestinal ward in the acute local NHS trust felt
they could have received more thorough education
as a newly qualified staff nurse. This is because they
often felt this lack of knowledge and confidence
negatively affected their relationships with patients.
This meant staff often relied on stoma care nurse
specialists for advice rather than relying on their own
competency and reflecting on previous experiences
to develop how they deliver care. It is emphasised
however by Hashem and El-Sayed Abusaad (2016)
that nurses need to have good knowledge around
stoma care to inform patients and encourage them to
be involved in their treatment.
Introducing an educational learning package
To address the gaps that are currently in practice
regarding stoma care, the introduction of an
educational learning package may be beneficial in
practice. When focusing on monitoring and reducing
the risk of patients developing anxiety or depression
post-operatively, a ‘deteriorating mental health
checklist’ could be implemented to help patients
develop healthy coping strategies throughout the
recovery period. Any patient who displays specific
characteristics corresponding with those on the
checklist to indicate declining mental health should
then trigger a red flag to determine if the patient
requires care from other medical teams such as
counsellors or mental health.
Article #2
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