Effect of Designed nursing intervention protocol on outcomes of patients with symptomatic knee osteoarthritis

Abstract

Abstract: Symptomatic knee osteoarthritis is the most common chronic joint disease in the world, that lead to chronic pain and disability (Postler, et al, 2018). Egyptian patients with primary knee osteoarthritis have relatively poor health related quality of life; that manifested mainly by pain. Disease duration and affection of both knees considered indictors for lower scores of all quality domains, and knee stiffness (Mahmoud, Moghazy, Fathy, and Niazy, 2018). Aims, this study aimed to examine the effect of designed nursing intervention protocol on outcomes of patients with symptomatic knee osteoarthritis. Research design: A quasi experimental research design was used to conduct this study. Research Setting: This study was conducted at orthopedic clinic of New Emergency Hospital (El Demerdash Hospital) affiliated to Ain Shams University, Cairo. Subjects: A Purposive sample of 50 patients diagnosed as symptomatic knee osteoarthritis. Tools: I. An Interviewing questionnaire it was consisted of. patient demographic characteristic, medical history, Patient with symptomatic knee osteoarthritis knowledge, and health practices. II: Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS): It was adopted from Roos; et al., 1998. It was used to assess knee osteoarthritis outcomes. Results: This study revealed that, the age of 38% of the study subjects were between 50 to 60 years with mean age 47.52 ± 8.08, and 55% were females. There was highly statistically significant difference between patients' knowledge and health practices regarding osteoarthritis management pre/post implementation of the nursing intervention protocol, while there was no statistically significant difference between patients' Osteoarthritis Outcome Score pre/post implementation, although there was marked improvement post implementation. Conclusion: Implementation of designed nursing intervention protocol had a positive effect on improving patients’ level of knowledge and health practices regarding osteoarthritis and markedly improving patient's outcomes. Recommendations: Conducting comprehensive health education programs for patients with symptomatic knee osteoarthritis in outpatient's clinics with simple printed guidelines in booklets, leaflets or brochures explaining how to manage the disease problems and application of similar studies to assess the needs and factors affecting such group of patients.