Establishment and Clinical Application of the General Comfort Scale for Postoperative Lung Cancer Patients

Background and purpose The concept of enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) not only reflects rapid perioperative recovery but also focuses on the comfort experience of inpatients. This study intends to establish a clinically applicable general comfort questionnaire (GCQ) for patients with lung cancer after surgery and verify its clinical application effect. Methods The comfort index items for postoperative lung cancer were formed by combining previous research and literature, clinically applied comfort scales, and expert interviews. The Delphi method was used to conduct two rounds of expert consultations to determine the final index and establish a postoperative comfort scale for lung cancer patients. This scale was used to conduct a questionnaire survey on 200 patients to test the reliability and validity of the scale. Results The comfort scale contains 3 dimensions and 10 items and is easy to operate and evaluate in clinical applications. The Cronbach's α coefficient of the comfort scale is 0.801, and the scale content validity index (SCVI/ave) is 0.97. The common factor 1 and 2 characteristic roots of scale structural validity evaluation are 3.257 and 1.352 respectively, both greater than 1, with cumulative variance contribution rates of 32.57% and 13.52%. Pain and getting out of bed are the main factors influencing patient comfort. Conclusion The postoperative comfort scale for lung cancer patients has high clinical application reliability and validity. This study identified pain and mobility (early ambulation or getting out of bed) as the primary factors influencing the postoperative comfort of lung cancer patients.