The effect of rehabilitation education through social media on the quality of life in burn patients: a randomized, controlled, clinical trial

BACKGROUND: Burn is one of the most brutal harms to the human body and mind and its wide-ranging complications have many adverse effects on the patients’ quality of life. The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of rehabilitation education through social media on burn patients’ quality of life. METHODS: The present randomized, controlled, clinical trial was conducted on 60 patients admitted to Imam Reza Hospital Burn Center in the city of Mashhad, Iran, who were randomly assigned to either the intervention or control groups (n = 30 per group). The researcher then created a WhatsApp channel to provide educational content and a WhatsApp group for burns patients to join and get their questions answered. The intervention group patients pursued their post-discharge education through the social media for a month. The control group patients received their discharge education according to the ward’s routine procedures through pamphlets and face-to-face training by the personnel. As the study’s main variable, the Burn Specific Health Scale-Brief was completed by both groups before and 1 and 2 months after the intervention. Data were analyzed using the ANCOVA and repeated-measures ANOVA. RESULTS: There was no significant differences between the intervention and control groups in terms of the QOL score and any of the domains at baseline. The results indicated the significant effect of the intervention both 1 and 2 months post-intervention on the QOL score and all the domains (P < 0.05), except for body image (P(model1) = .550 and P(model2) = .463) and skin sensitivity (P(model1) = .333 and P(model2) = .104). CONCLUSION: The post-discharge rehabilitation education of burns patients through social media improves their quality of life and can be used as an appropriate educational and follow-up method in different stages of the rehabilitation of burn patients. TRIAL REGISTRATION NO. IRCT20190622043971N1, 05-10-2019.