Effectiveness of non-pharmacological nursing interventions to improve the quality of life of patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: A systematic review

Aim To evaluate whether non-pharmacological nursing interventions improve the quality of life, including both physical and psychosocial states, for patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, compared to patients receiving the usual care visit or not receiving routine nursing. Methods A comprehensive search was conducted of the following electronic databases in English and Japanese: PubMed, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, The Cochrane Central Register Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), NPO Japan Medical s Society's Ichushi - Web database, National Institute of Informatics' Scholarly and Academic Information Navigator (CiNii) database, Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKEN) database, and Database of Health Labor Sciences Research Grants. The keywords were as follows: [interstitial lung disease], [interstitial pulmonary fibrosis], [idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis] AND [nurse OR nurses' role OR nursing]. A search method was used based on the eligibility criteria without including words, such as "randomized controlled trial" (RCT). Three categories defined the search parameters: (i) patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis; (ii) non-pharmacological nursing interventions; and (iii) RCT. Results Three-hundred-and-ninety-four articles were reviewed. Two articles met all the eligibility criteria. The nursing interventions were "disease management program" and "community case conference," both involving nurse specialists. The quality-of-life scores decreased after 6 weeks of intervention with the disease management program. The quality-of-life scores improved after 4 weeks of intervention with the community case conferences. The risk of bias for these two studies was high. Conclusion There was limited evidence of non-pharmacological nursing interventions improving the quality of life of patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.