The Effect of Self-Care Education on the Quality of Life in Patients with Pulmonary Tuberculosis

Abstract

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) affects various aspects of quality of life (QoL), and self-care is the most important form of primary care and one of the main factors involved in the process of treating chronic diseases and improving the patients’ QoL. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the effect of self-care education on the QoL of TB patients. Methods: In this quasi-experimental study, 110 TB patients referred to the TB coordinating Center in Zahedan, Southeastern Iran, in 2018, are studied. Participants were selected using convenience sampling and were randomly assigned to the intervention (n = 55) and control (n = 55) groups. Data were collected using the tuberculosis quality of life-version 2 (TBQol-v2). For the intervention group, first, patients and their caregivers were divided into groups compromising of 4 to 6 members, and then three sessions of self-care education, including lectures and questions and answers meetings, each lasted for 30 minutes (in total 90 minutes) were provided to each group. Data were analyzed in SPSS version 21 using descriptive statistical tests, independent t-test, paired t-test, and chi-squared test. Results: Mean of the total QoL score of the two groups before the intervention was 67.56 ± 5.99 and 67.09 ± 5.03, respectively, indicating no significant difference (P = 0.65). But after providing the intervention, the mean score of patients QoL in the intervention group (74.84 ± 4.90) was significantly higher than the control group (67.98 ± 0.68) (P = 0.001). Conclusions: Since self-care education can effectively enhance the QoL of TB patients, it is recommended to provide such educations for both treatment and follow-up of these patients along with directly observed treatment, short-course (DOTS).