This study was sponsored by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) as a Minor Field Study.
Background: The treatment of leprosy patients in endemic countries is free of charge. Despite that, leprosy is still a disease that is spreading and can lead to severe consequences such as disability. With leprosy comes also social stigma, discrimination and poverty which often affect the decision of seeking treatment at an early stage, or even treatment at all until the resulting disability forces the patient to seek help. With this study I wish to increase the knowledge of the importance of compliance and education in health care system with patients with leprosy, and to enlightening how nurses can promote this in their daily work.
Problem rationale: Even though the importance of seeking early treatment is known, people tend not to seek treatment because of reasons such as stigma. As a nurse, one has responsibilities to care for the whole patient and to give the right information to handle the situation, but because of factors, such as stigma, it constitutes a challenge for nurses within the care of leprosy.
Aim: To investigate nurses’ experiences of educating patients with leprosy, with emphasis on aspects of how to handle compliance problems in the treatment and how to support a patient with leprosy.
Method: A qualitative study based on interviews held according to an interview guide with semi-structured questions.
Result: The findings in this study emphasize the significance of education in order to
gain and maintain compliance of treatment with the patients with leprosy even though nurses had many different ways of supporting by education. The findings were divided in to four main categories with in total eleven subcategories to present the techniques and methods of supporting the patients.
Discussion: The importance of supporting the patients with leprosy in different ways by education has showed very clearly in the study. Though, at the same time nurses educate with medical knowledge, the patients are the experts in this case of the lived knowledge and this could be a problem to satisfy both aspects unless they complement each other. To do so, a dialog and a relationship of trust must be present between the
patient and the nurse, and this could be done through giving the patients time to express themselves and ask their questions of concern. When the questions and thoughts have been heard, the nurse can satisfy the patient’s need in a more accurate way and continue to support the patient with education and encouragement.