Evaluation of The effect of Self-Care Education on Quality of Life in People with Spinal Cord Injury

Abstract

Background & Aims: Spinal cord injury is usually debilitating and has many negative effects on the quality of life of people due to secondary complications. Therefore, improving the quality of life of people with spinal cord injury is one of the main priorities in the nursing profession. Also, educating self-care behaviors and obtaining information from nurses can be helpful for people with this problem. Self-care is also the most important form of primary care for chronic diseases in the health sector. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of self-care education on the quality of life of people with spinal cord injury referred to Khatam OlAnbia Hospital in Tehran. Materials & Methods: The present study was a quasi-experimental study with a control group. 84 patients with spinal cord injury referred to Khatam Ol-Anbia Hospital in Tehran in the first 6 months of 2020 were selected through systematic random sampling and divided in two groups; an intervention group and a control group. The questionnaire used in this study is an abbreviated form of WHO Quality of Life Assessment Group. WHOQOL-BREF Introduction is a 26-item questionnaire that measures a person's overall quality of life. This questionnaire has four subscales and an overall score. These subscales include: physical health, mental health, social relationships, environmental health, and an overall score. The reliability of Quality of Life questionnaire was achieved through Cronbach's alpha which was equal to α= 0.79 and internal correlation coefficient was calculated for relative reliability which was equal to 0.85. After coordination with the officials of Khatam OlAnbia Hospital in Tehran, the researcher referred to the spinal cord injury wards and after introducing himself, explaining the nature and objective of the research, and the procedures to conduct the study to the ward staff, the patients, and their companions, received informed consent from the patients. The pre-test was performed for both groups and before the intervention, the questionnaires of demographic characteristics and WHO Quality of Life were completed by patients admitted to the spinal cord injury wards. Then, the intervention group was formed in the social network entitled "Self-care and spinal cord injuries" and in addition to the usual training, 30-session self-care training was conducted every day for 30 minutes which lasted a month. The training included description of the disease, complications of the disease, types of pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments for disease control, self-care and its importance in rehabilitation, how to follow a proper diet, how to follow the prescribed medication and daily activities, exercise and physical activity, counseling and talking with friends, family and nonfamily support, the skills of how to change the position, transfer, increase performance and independence of patients with spinal cord injury. In this study, 42 patients participated in each group, and 4 patients in the intervention group and 2 in the control group were excluded from the study for reasons such as cancellation of cooperation, not completing the questionnaire in pre-test or post-test stages, not studying the material submitted for more than three sessions (according to the feedback, the daily review of message information, analyzing Read or Delivered option in the . Department of MedicalSurgical Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran . Department of MedicalSurgical Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran (Corresponding Author) Tel: 09136782876 Email: shafiebafti.f@iums.ac.ir . Department of Psychiatric Nursing, Nursing Care Research Center, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran . Department of Psychology, Shefa Neuroscience Research Center, KhatamOl-Anbia Hospital, Tehran, Iran . Department of Biostatistics, School of Health, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran D ow nl oa de d fr om ij n. iu m s. ac .ir a t 4 :3 6 IR S T o n S un da y N ov em be r 28 th 2 02 1 ناریا یراتسرپ هیرشن هرود 34 هرامش / 132 / نابآ هام 1400 social network), and finally a total of 38 patients comprised the intervention group and 40 patients the control