THE EFFECT OF VIRTUAL EDUCATION ON THE QUALITY OF LIFE DIMENSIONS OF PATIENTS WITH OSTOMY

Living with a temporary or permanent ostomy affects the quality of a patient's life and requires patients' education to care for themselves. Education is one of the ways to increase individuals' quality of life. The present study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of virtual education on different dimensions of quality of life in the patients with intestinal ostomy referred to the hospitals of Kermanshah province, Iran in 2020-2021.

This quasi-experimental study with before and after design was conducted on 61 patients with intestinal ostomies selected by simple sampling from May to July 2021. Participants first responded to Weir and Sherborn's quality of life, then were trained in a self-care plan to practice self-care at home. Two months after the intervention, questionnaires were distributed and completed again among the patients. The paired t-test, Wilcoxon, and SPSS statistical software v.20 were used for data analysis.

The mean score of patients' quality of life before the intervention was 34.05 ± 16.53, reaching 49.63 ± 21.59 after the intervention. Based on paired t-test, this difference was significant (P<0.001). There was a statistically significant difference between the mean of all aspects of the patient's quality of life except general health before and after the intervention (P<0.005).

Distance education and counseling can improve the quality of life in ostomy patients. Therefore, considering the high prevalence of colorectal cancer and the unfortunate consequences of its poor control, such as physical and mental-psychological complications, loss of quality of life, and increased number of hospitalizations, being in the hospital and imposing high costs on the patient, family, and society, and considering the prevalence of infectious diseases such as covid-19 in the society, it is possible to use virtual self-care training through smartphones to solve this problem.