The Effect of Self-Care Program Training on Self-Efficacy in Veteran with Spinal Cord Injury: A Randomized Clinical Trial Study

Background: Advances in surgical and medical management have significantly reduced the length of time that patients with spinal cord injury have to stay in hospital; however, less attention has been paid to their psychological issues. Objectives: This study aimed to determine the effect of self-care program training on self-efficacy in veteran with spinal cord injury. Methods: This study is a randomized control trial study that in that pre-test/post-test plan with the control group was used. All of the veterans with paraplegia spinal cord injury, who referred to a private hospital in 2017 - 2018, were our statistical study population. Sixty veterans were selected based on the inclusion criteria and purposive sampling method and randomly divided into two groups of experimental and control by using a table of random numbers. For the intervention group, six sessions of a 60 - 45-minute self-care education were performed. Patients filled Moorong self-efficacy scale before, one week and one month after the intervention. SPSS statistical software version 19 was used to analyze the data using chi-square, Fisher’s exact test, independent t-test, and repeated measures. Results: The results showed that no significant difference was between the two groups of the intervention and control in terms of demographic characteristics. The mean self-efficacy score was 39.26 ± 4.03 in the intervention group, and 38.56 ± 3.99 in the control group before the intervention, which reached to 43.86 ± 5.15 and 38.36 ± 3.89 one week and 51.16 ± 5.36 and 39.26 ± 4.16 one month after the implementation of the intervention, respectively and this difference was significant in the intervention group (P ≤ 0.001). Conclusions: According to the results, self-care program training is effective in self-efficacy of veterans with spinal cord injury. Therefore, this method is simple, non-invasive, low-cost, and effective in increasing self-efficacy and the treatment of these veterans, which may be applied to nurses.