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Objective. Knowledge, belief, and behavior model (knowledge-attitude-practice (KAP)) is known as a cognitive model. Health education is important to the prognosis of patients, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients. However, the investigation regarding health education based on the KAP model is few. Thus, this work is aimed at analyzing the influence of nurse-led health education on self-management ability, satisfaction, and compliance of elderly patients with COPD based on knowledge, belief, and practice model. Methods. 60 elderly patients with COPD cured in our hospital from January 2019 to April 2021 were enrolled for the study. The patients were randomly assigned to control group ( n = 30 ) and study group ( n = 30 ). The former group received routine nursing, and the latter group accepted health education based on “knowledge, belief, and practice” model. Finally, the scores of nursing satisfaction, KAP score, compliance rate, self-management level, pulmonary function, and life quality were compared in the two groups. Results. The nursing satisfaction of the study group (100.00%) was higher than that (83.33%) of the control group ( P < 0.05 ). The scores of knowledge, attitude, and behavior were remarkably higher in the study group than in the control group after nursing ( P < 0.05 ). Moreover, KAP scores also significantly increased in the study group after nursing. The compliance rate of the study group (93.33%) was higher than that of the control group (66.67%) ( P < 0.05 ). After nursing, the scores of symptom management, daily life management, emotion management, information management, and management efficiency were higher in the study group than in the control group ( P < 0.05 ). In addition, pulmonary functions were improved in the two groups following nursing. Compared with the control groups, the 6 min walking distance, FEV1%, and FEV1/FVC% were higher in the study group ( P < 0.05 ). After nursing, the scores of life quality were reduced in the two groups. The scores of physiological function, psychological function, social function, and health self-cognition were lower in the study group than in the control group ( P < 0.05 ). Conclusion. Based on the model of knowledge, belief, and practice, nurse-led health education can successfully enhance the self-management ability, satisfaction, and compliance of elderly COPD patients.

Neurovascular units (NVUs) are basic functional units in the central nervous system and include neurons, astrocytes and vascular compartments. Ischemic stroke triggers not only neuronal damage, but also dissonance of intercellular crosstalk within the NVU. Stroke is sexually dimorphic, but the sex-associated differences involved in stroke-induced neurovascular dysfunction are studied in a limited extend. Preclinical studies have found that in rodent models of stroke, females have less neuronal loss, stronger repairing potential of astrocytes and more stable vascular conjunction; these properties are highly related to the cerebroprotective effects of female hormones. However, in humans, these research findings may be applicable only to premenopausal stroke patients. Women who have had a stroke usually have poorer outcomes compared to men, and because stoke is age-related, hormone replacement therapy for postmenopausal women may exacerbate stroke symptoms, which contradicts the findings of most preclinical studies. This stark contrast between clinical and laboratory findings suggests that understanding of neurovascular differences between the sexes is limited. Actually, apart from gonadal hormones, differences in neuroinflammation as well as genetics and epigenetics promote the sexual dimorphism of NVU functions. In this review, we summarize the confirmed sex-associated differences in NVUs during ischemic stroke and the possible contributing mechanisms. We also describe the gap between clinical and preclinical studies in terms of sexual dimorphism.

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