ABSTRACT
Objective:To explore the responsibilities of respiratory nurses in the management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patient and the difficulties in disease management, so as to provide reference basis for formulating COPD management training strategies for respiratory nurses.Methods:Using phenomenological methodology, 14 nurses from the Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine in the General Hospital of Ningxia Medical University and the First People′s Hospital of Yinchuan were interviewed in a personal semi-structured way from May to August 2021, and the data were sorted and analyzed according to Colaizzi 7-step analysis method.Results:Nurses′understanding of the responsibilities of COPD patient management could be summarized into five themes: dynamic monitoring and management of patients′ health, nursing decision-making of sudden changes in patients′ condition, implementation of patients′ out of hospital follow-up, promotion of improvement of patients′ self-management behavior, and cooperation among multidisciplinary team members. The difficult experience of nurses in the management of COPD patients abstracted five themes: lack of professional knowledge of COPD management, lack of clinical nursing decision-making authority, lack of human and financial support for follow-up, lack of communication skills with patients, and lack of multidisciplinary team formation in the hospital.Conclusions:Respiratory nurses have a clear understanding of the responsibilities of COPD patient management, but there are multiple difficulties in performing their responsibilities. We should pay attention to the responsibility positioning and difficulty support of nurses′ COPD management, and formulate targeted training strategies to promote the improvement of COPD nursing quality.