Effects of Empowerment Program on Health Behavior and Effectiveness of Pulmonary Rehabilitation of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Abstract

There are many health problems in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, such as, unable to perform daily activities as they need, feeling of powerlessness due to low self-esteem. To encourage the empowerment, therefore, should be provided in order to ensure better their health behaviors, reduce those negative impacts and rise their quality of life.     

This quasi-experimental research (one group, pre-post-test design) was designed to examine the effectiveness of empowerment program on health behavior and pulmonary rehabilitation among patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.The samples were patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease who were admitted to Padad hospital.Purposive sampling was used to select 15 participants to participate in the empowerment program by applying Gibson's empowerment framework.The outcomes, including health behavior, exhaustion in daily activities and perceived quality of life were measured by using questionnaire (Health behavior questionnaire, COPD Assessment Test, and mMRC (Dyspnea scale: modified British Medical Research Council). Data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics and dependent t-test.

The results of this study revealed that after receiving the empowerment program, the mean scores of health behaviors was significantly higher than the mean score before joining the program (p< 0.05). In addition, after receiving the empowerment program, the mean quality of life scores and the mean scores of dyspnea were significantly lower than the mean score before participating in the empowerment program (p <0.05).

The results of this research suggest that the empowerment program has potential to help patients with COPD to modify their health behaviors and increase quality of life, improve lung function and their overall quality of life. Therefore, the empowerment program should be applied to nursing practice to manage COPD effectively, and it should be applied for the management of other chronic diseases.