Weifei Yu,1,* Jingxia Qiu,2,* Ximing Jiang,2 Haofen Xie,2 Zejun Cai,2 Bin Yang2 

1Ningbo Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ningbo, 315000, People’s Republic of China; 2The First Affiliated Hospital of Ningbo University(Yuehu Courtyard), Ningbo, 315000, People’s Republic of China

*These authors contributed equally to this work

Correspondence: Haofen Xie, The First Affiliated Hospital of Ningbo University(Yuehu Courtyard), No. 59 of Liuting Street, Haishu District, Ningbo, 315010, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86 13867889859, Email xihfff2022@126.com

Aim: To investigate the grip strength of older patients with gastrointestinal tumours and analyse its explanatory factors.
Methods: A total of 170 older patients with gastrointestinal tumours admitted to the Gastrointestinal Surgery Department of a Grade-III hospital in the Zhejiang province from January 2022 to December 2022 were selected as the investigation participants. Among them, there were 102 cases of gastric cancer (60.0%) and 68 cases of colon cancer (40.0%). There were 110 male patients (64.7%) and 60 female patients (35.3%), with patient ages ranging between 64 and 82 years old. A cross-sectional survey was conducted using a general data questionnaire, grip apparatus and the Nutritional Risk Screening 2002 (NRS-2002) score. Multiple linear regression was used to analyse the explanatory factors on the grip strength of older patients with gastrointestinal tumours.
Results: The grip strength of older patients with gastrointestinal tumours was 25.3± 5.3 kg. Multiple linear regression analysis showed that gender, age, disease, body mass index (BMI), albumin concentration and the NRS-2002 score were the main explanatory factors on grip strength (P< 0.05).
Conclusion: Grip strength was lower in older patients with gastrointestinal tumours and was lower in females, those aged ≥ 70 years, patients with colorectal cancer, individuals with a BMI of < 18.5, those with an albumin concentration of < 35g/l and those with an NRS2002 score of ≥ 3. Clinical staff should dynamically evaluate the level of grip strength in patients with gastrointestinal tumors and develop individualized interventions based on the related explanatory factors.

Keywords: gastrointestinal tumour, grip strength, analysis of explanatory factors, nursing