| Abstract: | The quasi‐experimentation was conducted to develop a self‐care agency promoting program on prostate‐cancer patients' self‐care activities and quality of life and evaluate its effectiveness. The self‐care agency promoting program for prostatectomy patients was developed from the analysis of self‐care problems of prostatectomy patients and involved the nursing strategies focused on the four principal sources of information that were used in the Orem's self‐care theory. This experimentation was designed for a non‐equivalent control group before and after design. 69 subjects who had prostatectomy at a leading hospital in Seoul were examined: 35 subjects for the experimental group and 34 for the control group. Data was collected right before treatments and 8 weeks after prostatectomy and analyzed with descriptive statistics, χ2 test, t‐test and Analysis of covariance. The study showed that there is a significant difference between the experimental group and the control group in both self‐care agency and quality of life. However, there was no significant difference in self‐care activities between the experimental and the control groups. Taken together, the Self‐care Agency Promoting Program for Prostatectomy patients was proved to be an effective nursing enhancement program for prostatectomy patients. This program can be applied in nursing field to promote self‐care agency and can also contribute to patients' quality of life. |
