A randomized controlled study on systematic nursing care based on health empowerment theory and its effect on the self-care and functional abilities of patients with spinal fractures

OBJECTIVE: In this study, we aimed to explore the effectiveness of systematic nursing care based on health empowerment theory on the self-care and functional abilities of patients with spinal fractures. METHODS: We selected a total of 50 patients with spinal fractures from our hospital and randomly divided them into the control group and the observation group, with 25 patients in each group. Patients in the control group received conventional nursing care, while those in the observation group received systematic nursing care grounded in the health empowerment theory. We recorded and compared the self-care ability, functional ability, knowledge about the condition, and pain scores of patients in the two groups before and after the nursing intervention. RESULTS: There was no significant difference in the baseline characteristics between the two groups (P > 0.05), and there was no significant difference in self-care ability, functional ability, knowledge about the condition, or the visual analog scale (VAS) score between the two groups before treatment (P > 0.05). After treatment, outcomes in the observation group in terms of self-care ability, functional ability, and knowledge about the condition were significantly better than those in the control group (P < 0.05), while the VAS score in the observation group was significantly lower than that in the control group (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Compared with conventional nursing care, patients with spinal fractures who received systematic nursing inputs based on health empowerment theory reported significant improvements in pain, self-care, functional ability, and knowledge of the condition, and this is an approach that is worthy of promotion in clinical use.