External skeletal fixator is an important aspect of complex fracture management, Patients with external fixation device have limited activity of daily livings and often have negative effects on their self-care abilities. Aim: this study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of nursing guidelines regarding self-care strategies for patients with external skeletal fixation. Research design: Quasi experimental design was used. Setting: The study was conducted in the orthopedic department and outpatient clinics for orthopedics at Benha University Hospital. Sample: Convenient sample of all patients admitted to orthopedic department and clinic during six months. Tools: three tools were used include; (1) Patients' interviewing questionnaire (2) Barthel Index (3) Pain assessment scale. Results: there were high statistically significance regarding the overall knowledge about the skeletal system , fracture , orthopedic fixator and self-care at pre, post implementation of guidelines, there were highly statistical differences regarding patients‟ reported practice towards external skeletal fixation, there was positive improvement regarding patients' independency in activities of daily living and self-care and finally there were statistically significant differences regarding all items of pain assessment between pre and post guidelines. Conclusion: majority of the studied patients had unsatisfactory level of knowledge and practice regarding self-care strategies for patients with external skeletal fixation pre guidelines implementation. Meanwhile, the majority of the studied patients had statistically significant improvement in their knowledge and practice regarding self-care strategies post guidelines implementation. Recommendations: Further researchers are proposed to investigate the effect of implementation guidelines on decreasing and preventing complication of external fixation on larger sample selected from different geographical areas of Egypt to generalize the findings |
