Development and evaluation of an early rehabilitation nursing program for patients with pulmonary tuberculosis

To develop and evaluate an early rehabilitation nursing program for patients with pulmonary tuberculosis to improve their exercise endurance, pulmonary function, and self-care ability, promote their rehabilitation, improve their quality of life, and explore the construction and application of early rehabilitation nursing program. From March 2021 to August 2022, 104 patients with pulmonary tuberculosis in the improvement stage were recruited and randomly assigned to an intervention group (n = 52) and a control group (n = 52). Exercise endurance was assessed before and 12 weeks after the nursing program, and the groups were compared. Changes in pulmonary function were also analyzed. The exercise of self-care agency scale, self-rating depression scale, self-rating anxiety scale, and generic quality of life inventory-74 were used to assess differences in patients' quality of life. Patients in the intervention group performed significantly better than those in the control group in the 6-minute walking test, and had significantly higher arterial blood oxygen partial pressure and significantly lower arterial partial pressure of carbon dioxide after the intervention (P < .001). After the intervention, the forced vital capacity and forced expiratory volume in 1 second in the intervention group were significantly higher than those in the control group (P < .001). After the intervention, the scores for health knowledge (P < .001), self-care skills (P = .001), self-concept (P < .001) and self-care responsibility (P = .002) of patients in the intervention group were significantly higher, and the self-rating depression scale, self-rating anxiety scale, and generic quality of life inventory-7 scores were significantly lower in the intervention group than in the control group (P < .001). This study demonstrates the clinical value of early rehabilitation nursing during the improvement period in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis.