Effects of multidisciplinary team continuous care model on psychological behavior and quality of life in children with β-thalassemia major

Abstract

Objective: To explore the effects of a multidisciplinary team (MDT) continuous care model on psychological behavior and quality of life in children with β-thalassemia major (β-TM). Methods: A retrospective study was conducted on 90 children with β-TM who were hospitalized in the Department of Pediatrics, Affiliated Hospital of Youjiang Medical University for Nationalities from October 2021 to May 2022. According to nursing methods, the children were divided into a routine group and an experimental group, with 45 cases in each group. The routine group was intervened with routine nursing approaches, and the experimental group was intervened with the MDT continuous nursing mode on the basis of the control group. The psychological behavior [Positive and Negative Affect Scale for Children (PANAS-C)], quality of life (QoL) [Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory TM (PedsQLTM)] and satisfaction were compared between the two groups before and 6 months after intervention. The hemoglobin level and ferritin level of children after 3 months and 6 months of intervention were measured. The occurrence of complications and nursing satisfaction were recorded. The prognostic factors were further analyzed. Results: After the intervention, the positive emotion score, QoL score, hemoglobin level, satisfaction score in the experimental group were all higher than those in the conventional group, and the negative emotion score and ferritin level in the experimental group were all lower than those in the conventional group (all P < 0.05). The results of Cox analysis showed that the use of iron-removing drugs and arrhythmia/heart rate failure were risk factors affecting the prognosis of children with β-TM, while the MDT continuous nursing mode was a protective factor (all P < 0.05). Conclusion: The MDT continuous care model can effectively promote mental health in children with β-TM, improve their quality of life, medical satisfaction, ameliorate the degree of anemia in children, reduce the incidence of complications and improve the prognosis; thus, it is worthy of wide clinical application.