Hsiao-Yu Chen
National Taichung University of Science and Technology, Taiwan
Title: The effectiveness of a self-management program in preventing complications, promoting self-efficacy and health status in people with spinal cord injury
Biography
Biography: Hsiao-Yu Chen
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a self-management program in prevention complications, promoting self-efficacy and health status in people with spinal cord injury. Methods: The study adopted a quasi-experimental pre-test and post-test control group design. Data was collected from October 2014 to July 2015. Qualified participants were recruited from Spinal Injury Association in Taiwan. All participants were evaluated with instruments of personal information, self-efficacy and health status, indicators at baseline and at 3 months and 6 months. The experimental group (n = 30) received self-management program in addition to teaching by the researcher, whereas the control group (n = 27) received without a self-management program. Several descriptive analysis functions were employed to explain the distribution conditions of the data. Subsequently, chi-square test and Mann-Whitney U test were performed to compare the experimental and control group. To obtain inferential statistics, generalised estimating equation (GEE) was used to compare the pre-test and post-test scores obtained from the experimental and control groups. Results: The total 57 participants were participated in this study. The average age was 40.63 years old. The results indicated that, after received the SCI self-management program, the experimental group exhibited a considerably greater improvement in self-efficacy and health status. Although, we recorded no marked differences emerged between the experimental and control groups by using a GEE. The statistics showed that the prevention of complications, the experimental group had somewhat decrease（p = .094）than the control group. Conclusion: Our study results confirmed that the SCI self-management program is an effective instrument for preventing complications, promoting self-efficacy and health status in people with SCI, and is a practical health education tool. However, monitoring these people over the long term is necessary. We plan to use the proposed SCI self-management program with a larger number of people with SCI before them discharge from hospital and to continuously monitor their improvement.