Iranian Journal of Rehabilitation Research in Nursing

Introduction: Thalassemia is the most common single gene disorder. The difficulties and complications of this disease affects all body systems which otherwise could not be seen in all other diseases. Thalassemia like any other chronic disease negatively affects person’s quality of life. Objective of this study was to determine the effect of partnership caring model on quality of life of adolescents with major thalassemia.

Method: The research was a quasi-experimental study with intervention and control groups, research sample consisted of forty adolescents with thalassemia major who were referred to Razi and Bo-Ali Sari hospitals in Ghaemshahr and Sari two northern cities in Iran. First, each hospital was randomly assigned to intervention and control groups then eligible patients were chosen based on convenience method. The Demographic data and SF36 questionnaires completed before the intervention in both groups. Partnership caring model was conducted during 2 months in the intervention group according to the motivation, preparation, involvement and evaluation. Quality of life scores in two groups were compared with pre-intervention data 3 months later using SPSSv.22 software.

Results: The mean and standard deviation scores of quality of life before intervention were 45/16±5/33 and 45/38±6/19 in intervention and control groups respectively and independent t-test showed no statistically significant differences (P = 0/43). But the difference between two groups after intervention was significant (75/06 ±4/0 vs 42/80 ± 7/73 in intervention and control groups respectively with P≤0.001).

Conclusion: This study showed that partnership caring model can be used as an effective caring approach to improve the quality of life in adolescents with major thalassemia.