Self-Care in Patients with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: A Review Study

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) often follows the experience of a tragic event. Therefore, self-care has a special place in the lives of patients to minimize the effects of this disorder. The implementation of self-care health interventions has an impact on the recovery process and health of these patients.

The aim of this study was to collect and evaluate the research conducted on self-care in patients with PTSD.

The present study aimed to review. Information was selected by searching Persian and English articles with review and analytical include criteria, reading title, combat-related PTSD samples and self-care for these patients and article exclude criteria, low relevance to the repetitive topic and overlapping articles. By searching for the keywords of self-care, care deficit, systematic review, and PTSD were examined at reputable databases including Google Scholar, Magiran SID, Iran Medex, PubMed, Ovid, Science Direct, and Scopus the period from April 2004 to July 2019.

In this study, 103 articles were reviewed and then based on the include criteria and the articles that were most relevant to the subject under study. The remaining 18 articles, 6 of which were in Persian and 12 in English. As the results of different studies, the effect of self-care behaviors such as relaxation, deep breathing training, going to work, exercise and regular nutrition, going to the place where the accident occurred, and adequate rest on reducing PTSD symptoms have been reported.

Self-care training is effective in reducing PTSD symptoms and improving these patients, and due to the increase in accidents and subsequent post-traumatic stress disorder, it is recommended that self-care in this group of patients using special coping skills In the case of PTSD, the relevant symptoms and the balanced lifestyle should be taught and improved. In the care of these patients, it seems necessary to use a comprehensive self-care model. According to limited research on self-care of these patients, it is recommended that more relevant research be performed in the future.