Self-management support interventions for persons with chronic disease
Citation: Franek J. Self-management support interventions for persons with chronic disease: an evidence-based analysis. Ontario health technology assessment series. 2013;13(9):1-60.
What is this? The COVID-19 pandemic is placing a strain on healthcare services, workers and patients, requiring some patients to self-manage chronic conditions. Existing evidence on self-management support interventions for chronic conditions might provide useful information for policy makers.
In this systematic review, the author searched for randomized trials of self-management support interventions for general chronic disease. They restricted their searches to articles published in English between January 2000 and January 2012. They included 10 randomized trials (6074 patients), 9 of which assessed the Stanford Chronic Disease Self-Management program. The review author rated the quality of the evidence as low or very low.
What was found: The Stanford Chronic Disease Self-Management program led to modest, short-term improvement in pain, disability, fatigue, depression, health distress, self-rated health and health-related quality of life when compared to usual care.
However, it did not reduce the number of primary care doctor visits, emergency department visits, days in hospital or times a patient was hospitalized; and the effects on long-term outcomes and some important clinical outcomes are uncertain.