Self-help practice in persons with rheumatoid arthritis

Abstract

An exploratory study was designed to discover what are the self-care activities in persons with rheumatoid arthritis and the relationships among self-care activities, antecedent factors, and the consequent factor, quality of life. Content analysis was used to determine rheumatoid arthritis persons' descriptions of self-care activities and Orem's six categories of health-deviation self-care requisites that contribute to self-care activities. Antecedent factors which were associated with self-care activities included interpersonal, intrapersonal, and disease characteristics. Interpersonal factors included five domains; intrapersonal factors included three domains; and disease characteristics had four domains. The findings suggested that some antecedent factors, such as marital status, income, educational level, significant others, psychological support, physical support, number of years ill, and other diseases were associated with subjects' self-care activities. The findings also suggested that subjects' self-care activities were related to their quality of life. Recommendations for nursing practice and further research were discussed.