Intraoperative Inner Experiences of Patients Undergoing Percutaneous Lung Tumor Radiofrequency Ablation Guided by CT...

Pulmonary tumors rank among the most common thoracic diseases. Optimized therapies are critical to improve patient prognosis and quality of life. Radical surgery is risky and unsuitable for elderly frail patients or those with poor cardiopulmonary function and distant metastasis. CT-guided percutaneous lung radiofrequency ablation is a validated minimally invasive therapy with minor trauma, few complications, and rapid recovery. Existing quantitative studies mainly evaluate its therapeutic efficacy, whereas few investigate patients' distinctive psychological experiences during ablation. Sustained immobilization and treatment concerns trigger anxiety that undermines procedural cooperation and recovery. This qualitative study explores patients' perioperative feelings to provide evidence for individualized psychological interventions.

To explore the authentic perioperative physical and psychological experiences of patients with lung tumors receiving CT-guided percutaneous radiofrequency ablation, so as to provide evidence for developing targeted perioperative nursing interventions.

A qualitative descriptive design was adopted. Purposive sampling was used to recruit 14 patients hospitalized at a tertiary hospital in Nanjing from September to November 2025 who were scheduled for CT-guided percutaneous radiofrequency ablation. Semi-structured one-on-one interviews were conducted to collect patients' first-hand perioperative narratives. Data were analyzed via Colaizzi's seven-step qualitative analysis procedure, with the Health Belief Model applied as the theoretical framework to categorize and interpret extracted themes.

With the Health Belief Model (HBM) adopted as the analytical framework, this study extracted the authentic perioperative experiences of patients receiving CT-guided percutaneous radiofrequency ablation for lung tumors from psychological, physical, and cognitive dimensions. Three core themes including 14 subthemes were summarized: (1) Complex ambivalent emotions, (2) Coexisting multiple physical discomforts, (3) Disease cognition and care needs.

Clinical staff should fully recognize the diversified physical and psychological distress experienced by ablation patients. Standardized preoperative health education covering procedural knowledge and cooperation tips, together with stage-specific supportive care strategies, are recommended to relieve patient suffering. Given the single-center exploratory nature of this study, the findings cannot be widely generalized, and further multi-center verification is required.