Evaluation Of The Effect Of Leprosy Patients "Self Care Group"

Object:Self care of Leprosy patients is one of the methods in which Leprosy patients take care of their disabilities and do functional exercise by themselves with the help of medical staffs, in order to prevent the occurrence of leprosy secondary disability or the secondary disability becoming worse. By setting up Self Care Group (SCG), Leprosy patients are willing to participate in self care actively. Through mutual communication and encouragement, their disability rehabilitation and mental health will be improved effectively. By the study, I can explore an effective nursing mode that can improve the Leprosy patients’ self-care ability, so as to improve the quality of their life, and reduce the harm of Leprosy. At the same time, we can also provide scientific evidence for developing strategies and reducing the harm of Leprosy.Method:84 leprosy patients from four Leprosy sanatoriums were selected by cluster random sampling in Nov 2012, they were with eye, hand or foot disability. They were randomly divided into control group and experimental group (Self Care Group) following the principle of informed consent. Control group used the conventional method of self care by themselves, while the Self Care Group carried out self care and functional training regularly by the organization of the medical staffs and the team leader, and carried out the centralized self care twice a week. All the leprosy patients were investigated before and after the study by using the same questionnaire (Follow-up handbook of Leprosy patients self care). All analyses were done in Statistic Package for Social Science (SPSS) 19.0 by using the methods of descriptive statistics, t-test and chi-square test.Result:Among the 84 leprosy patients,79 of whom were men and 5 were women, the youngest was 47 years old, the oldest was 87 years old, and the average age of them was 71.9. The ages of self care group and control group had no significant difference(p>0.05).Most of them were farmers (accounted for 98.8%), and their cultural level was low, most people were still unmarried.42 of them were with eye disability (50%),78 of them were with hand disability (92.86%), and 77 of them were with foot disability (91.67%). Through one yesr study, there was no statistical difference of the change of eyes, hands and feet disability in control group (p> 0.05). While the member of disability cases of self care group with red eyes, dryness of hands and feet, rhagadia of hands and feet, ulcers of hands decreased obviously, and achieved better effect than the control group (p< 0.05).Conclusion:Self care group of Leprosy patients achieved a remarkable effect of improving the patients’eye, hand and foot disability. And it was also an effective and economic means to eliminate the leprosy harm in the low-epidemic state of Leprosy.