The symptom experience of neobladder recipients: characteristics and related factors

Neobladder implantation has become the preferred means of handling urinary diversion following a cystectomy. However, this surgical procedure frequently results in side effects and complications for the patient.

The purpose of this study was to examine neobladder recipient symptom experience, characteristics, and related factors.

Using a cross-sectional design, 53 patients who underwent a radical cystectomy and received a neobladder were recruited from a medical center in southern Taiwan. Data were collected from March 2004 to July 2005 by telephone interview using structured questionnaires.

The five most frequent symptoms for both genders included decreased sexual function, urinary incontinence, sleep disturbance, anxiety, and fatigue. We found significantly higher scores for women in sleep disturbance (p = .03), anxiety (p = .05), fatigue (p = .05), and decreased appetite (p = .01) variables. Length of hospital stay correlated positively and complete continence duration correlated negatively with symptom experience. Two factors, gender and duration until complete continence, together explained 72.0% of symptom experience variance (42.7% and 29.3% of variance, respectively).

A better understanding of the symptom experience of neobladder recipients and its related factors can improve the symptom appraisal efforts of physicians, enabling them to provide better quality postsurgical and discharge care and ultimately increase neobladder recipient quality of life.