The Effects of Follow-Up with Peer Group Meetings after Self-Help Program for Arthritis Patients

관절염 환자 자조관리과정 후 환우모임을 통한 추후관리 효과에 대한 연구

The purpose of this study was to find out the long-term effects of the self-help program through the follow-up with peer group meetings of arthritis patients. In order to fulfil the purposes, the follow-up program with peer group meetings was developed by researchers with consisting of monthly health contract, group discussion, group counseling, recreation, and exercise. This program was carried out 2-3 hours once in a month for 5 months (1999-2000) and evaluated in a nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design. The subjects were 34 patients of experimental group and 24 of control group. The measurement tools of this study are pain rating scale(Lee & Song), KHAQ(Bae), rating scale of fatigue, and goniometer. The results of this study revealed no significant differences on number of pain site, fatigue, physical functioning, flexibility of the shoulder joints, and level of the extension of the knee joints between experimental group and control group. Whileas pain reaction of the control group was significantly high. However, the peers expressed very much their satisfaction and appreciations with the follow-up program with Peer group meetings. Actually, they wanted to have this peer group meeting continuously. This results suggested that the follow-up program with peer group meeting could be recommended as good nursing intervention to help the arthritis patients after having the Self Help Program in the community setting.