Effect of nursing interventions on self-care for ostomy patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Ostomy surgery, which creates an opening for the elimination of bodily waste, requires patients to have significant self-care skills. Nursing interventions play a critical role in equipping these individuals with the knowledge and skills necessary for effective ostomy management. Aim To determine the nursing interventions applied to ostomy patients and examine their effects on patients' self-care ability. Design Systematic review and meta-analysis. Methods The study was conducted following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines. The research question-based PICOS approach was used. Pubmed, Cochrane Library, Scopus, Web of Science, CINAHL, and Ovid MEDLINE(R) electronic databases were searched on 6 June 2024 and 18 February 2026. A combination of MeSH terms and keywords—‘ostomy’, ‘enterostomy’, ‘nursing’, ‘self-care’, ‘nurse’, ‘experimental study’, and ‘randomised control trials’—was used in the search. The studies included in the review were between 2014 and 2026. This review includes nursing interventions for patients with an ostomy (enterostomy/urostomy). Primary outcomes were self-care ability. Data were analyzed using Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (CMA) Version 4 software. Results A total of 23 studies were included in this systematic review, with 2386 participants. Of the studies, 22 included patients with an enterostomy, and 1 included a patient with a urostomy. The experimental groups received nursing interventions categorized into four groups: Technology-Based, Model-Based Nursing Care, Structured Educational Strategies, and Specialized Clinical Interventions. The results showed that nursing interventions were associated with higher self-care ability. Conclusions This study has demonstrated that nursing interventions increased self-care for ostomy patients despite the methodological variations in the studies included in the review.