Title : Chronic IllnessSelf-Management: Trend and Evidence in Digital Era
Abstract:
Optimal chronic disease care requires long- term support from the community, monitoring from providers, and proactive self- management by patients. The long-term treatment regimen, navigation in the complex health system, and interaction with health care providers require active participation from patients to take part in managing their illness. For instance in cancer care, to effectively manage the side effects and symptom distress brought by cancer treatments, a collaboration between the providers and patients is required to alleviate these symptoms and prevent them from become worsening impediments and delaying further treatments. Cancer patients need to learn how to recognize, monitor, and control their own symptoms, and they also need to know how and when to solve problems while navigating within the complexity of the cancer treatment courses. To support patient self-management, research evidence has suggested interventions, such as patient education and peer support, can help enhance patient self-efficacy and skills. On the other hand, there is also an increasing trend to utilize digital mobile tools to support patientsto access health services via mobile devices and application software, a concept called mobile health (mhealth). The application of mhealth to chronic illness self-management remains to be further explored. This presentation will discuss the conceptual domains of patient self-management, interventions to enhance self-management and outcomes, and current literature evidence of mobile health application in chronic illness self-management. Summary from an integrative review will be presented.
Audience take away:
- The audience can consider applying the conceptual domains and approaches to enhance patient self-management.
- The presentation can help inform clinicians about different approaches on supporting patient self-management.
- The applicability of mhealth can be further explored and tested in research for its usability and effectiveness on long-term behavior change and health service outcomes in chronic illness management.
