Effects of continuous nursing on the quality of life and disease control in children with asthma

Abstract

Objective To explore the effects of continuous nursing on the quality of life and disease control in children with bronchial asthma. Methods 77 participants were randomly divided into the intervention group (n=39) and the control group (n=38). Based on the conventional nursing mode, the intervention group received additional continuous nursing after discharging from the hospital. The related nursing knowledge of the participants and their parents, children′s quality of life and their asthma control level were evaluated according to the continuing nursing assessment scale (CTM), childhood asthma control test (C.ACT) and pediatric asthma quality of life questionnaire (PAQLQ) before the intervention and after six months of discharge. Results After six months of discharge, the scores of the nursing knowledge, quality of life and asthma control level of the participants in the intervention group significantly improved compared to the scores for the control group (P<0.01). The average scores for the nursing knowledge of the patients and their parents increased from (51.92±3.3) to (71.10±2.026) after six months of discharge (t=4.731, P<0.001). The scores for each dimension of the patients′ quality of life in the intervention group were (6.48±0.49), (6.13±0.68), (6.23±0.52), which were higher than the scores of (6.07±0.78), (5.77±0.67), (5.93±0.60) in the control group (t=2.816, 2.352, 2.320; P<0.05). The asthma control rate was 94.9% for the intervention group, which was higher than the rate of 68.4% for the control group and the total rates of the asthma control also had significant differences between two groups (χ2=9.052, P<0.05). Conclusions The continuous nursing mode is an effective method of discharge management that can significantly improve patients′ knowledge and awareness of asthma, as well as their quality of life and asthma control level. Key words: Asthma; Continuous nursing; Quality of life; Disease control