The aims of this study were to develop a motivational interviewing program for exercise improvement in persons with physical disabilities and to examine the effect of this motivational interviewing intervention.

The study employed a nonequivalent control group pretest and posttest design. A total of 62 persons with physical disabilities (30 in the experimental group, 32 in the control group) were recruited from 2 community rehabilitation centers. The experimental group received 8 sessions of a group motivational interviewing program, scheduled once a week, with each session lasting 60 minutes. Test measures were completed before the intervention, immediately after the end of the intervention, 2 weeks later, and 6 weeks after the end of the intervention. Measures included self-efficacy for exercise, decisional balance for exercise, stage of change for exercise, regularity of exercise, exercise maintenance, and independent living ability. Data were analyzed using the c²-test, Fisher's exact test, Independent samples t-test, and repeated measures ANOVA, conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics version 18.

The experimental group showed a significant increase in self-efficacy for exercise (F=50.98, p<.001), benefit (pros) of exercise (F=24.16, p<.001), and independent living ability (F=50.94, p<.001), and a significant decrease in loss (cons) of exercise (F=26.50, p<.001). There were significant differences between the two groups in stages of change for exercise (p<.001), regularity of exercise (p<.001), and exercise maintenance (c²=26.61, p<.001).

The motivational interviewing program has the potential to improve exercise levels in persons with physical disabilities.

This study investigated the effects of psychosocial rehabilitation programs provided by a psychosocial rehabilitation center on the levels of self-efficacy for mentally disabled persons. We followed the study subjects for 2 yr in order to examine whether the psychosocial rehabilitation programs had a positive impact on their levels of self-efficacy.

There were 18 subjects in the experimental group and they received all the psychosocial rehabilitation services available at the psychosocial rehabilitation center for 2 yr. In the comparison group, there were 17 participants who voluntarily refused to participate in the psychosocial rehabilitation programs.

The results indicated that the psychosocial rehabilitation programs were effective in increasing the levels of the self-efficacy total score and specific self-efficacy score.

The overall study results indicated that psychosocial rehabilitation programs provided by a psychosocial rehabilitation center had a positive impact on increasing the levels of self-efficacy for mentally disabled persons.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a rehabilitation nursing program(RNP) for persons with disabilities.

a quasi-experimental pretest and post test study was used to examine the changes of patient's muscle strength, flexibility, self efficacy and health related quality of life at the completion of an 8-week education and physical exercise with a Thera-Band and Exercise Ball course. The subjects consisted of 40 adults who were disabled. Twenty-two experimental and 18 control subjects completed pre and post-test measures. Outcome variables were flexibility, hand grip, elbow flexor and extensor, knee flexor and extensor, self efficacy and quality of life. Independent t-test and ANCOVA were used to examine group differences by using SPSS 12.0

Mean comparisons of the change scores revealed that the experimental group increased significantly in knee extremity flexor(p=0.035), extensor(p=0.039), flexibility(p=0.008), self efficacy(p=0.000), and quality of life(p=0.000). No significant group differences were found in each patient's hand grip, elbow flexor and extensor.

RNP can improve lower extremity flexibility, muscle strength, self efficacy and health related quality of life in people with disabilities. The intervention to tailor exercise and education to the unique needs of the disability was suggested for further study.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors that influenced health related quality of life in women with disabilities. The other purpose was to examine the correlations of activities of these women's daily life, self esteem, and health promoting behavior with health related quality of life.

The subjects consisted of120 adult disabled women. Data was collected from February to June2004 using structured questionnaires. Spearman's correlation, and multiple regression were used to test the quality of life with K-ADL, self esteem, and health promoting behaviors by using SPSS 12.0 for windows.

The health related quality of life of women with disabilities was related to educational level, marital status, residential type, cause of acquired disability and disability of spouse. In addition, it was related to self esteem (r=.385, p=0.00), health promoting behaviors(r=.428, p=0.00), K-ADL(r=-.419, p=0.00) and K-IADL(r=-.439, p=0.00). Activities of daily life, self esteem and health promoting behaviors were significant predictors 37.3% (=0.212, p=0.000) to explain quality of life in disabled women.

The more self esteem, health promoting behaviors, K-ADL and K-IADL are positive, the more the health related quality of life is good. Further studies need to be done to investigate additional effects of health related quality of life and to investigate nursing approaches to improve their health related quality of life with significant predictors.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influencing factors on health-related quality of life of physically disabled persons.

Data was collected from 96 persons with a physical disability in three cities in Korea from June to September, 2003. Social support and depression were measured by a Social Support Questionnaire 6 (SSQ₆) and Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression questionnaire (CES-D). The Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale was used to measure self-esteem. Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) was measured using Smith Kline Beecham Quality of Life Scale (SBQOL). The SPSS WIN 11.0 version program was used for data analysis.

There were significant differences of HRQOL according to monthly income and economic status. All subjects had a high level of depression and low self-esteem.

The findings of this study show that self-esteem and the size of the social support network are significant influencing variables on HRQOL in physically disabled persons. Nursing intervention and counseling programs which improve self-esteem and increase the size of a social support network are needed to promote HRQOL in physically disabled persons.