Abstract
BACKGROUND: Postoperative patients undergoing general surgery often experience distressing symptoms such as thirst and dry mouth which can significantly impact their postoperative experiences. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a nurse-led intervention in alleviating thirst intensity and dryness of mouth and examine the association with the selected demographic and clinical variables. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This experimental study with pre-test and post-test designs involved 60 postoperative patients from two surgical intensive care units chosen by the computer-generated randomized table. Participants were randomly allotted to the study and control groups in equal numbers. Data collection tools included socio-demographic questionnaires, the Numerical Pain Rating Scale for Thirst (NRS), and the Challacombe scale for dryness scoring at baseline and post-intervention. After the pre-test, the nurse-led intervention was carried out by moistening the oral cavity with sterile cold swabs two to three times, followed by cold water spray application on the oropharynx five times at one-hour intervals over five hours while the control group received routine care. Data were analyzed and the outcomes were reported using descriptive and inferential statistics. RESULTS: The study group showed a significant reduction in thirst intensity scores from an average of 6.67 to 2.10 and dryness score decreased score from 4.23 to 1.83. In contrast, the control group showed minimal changes for thirst score from 6.73 to 6.10 and dryness score from 4.20 to 3.20. Association of thirst intensity and dryness scores with the demographic and clinical variables such as age, sex, marital status, residence, duration of surgery, and comorbidity were found. CONCLUSION: The nurse-led intervention effectively reduced thirst intensity and dryness of mouth among postoperative patients. Further research in integrating these interventions into regular nursing care and the formulation of standardized protocols using simple and cost-effective methods is to be explored.