Promoting self-care in nursing encounters with persons affected by long-term conditions—a proposed model to guide clinical care

Abstract

Background: Nursing interventions for persons affected by long-term conditions should focus on providing support to enhance the ability to manage disease in everyday life. Many clinical nurses feel they have inadequate training or experience to provide self-management support in a beneficial and structured way. This study explores the process towards independent self-care and management of disease in persons affected by Parkinson’s disease and the support required from healthcare to achieve this. It presents a nursing model to guide nurses in providing self-management support in the clinical care encounter. Methods: The results from three previously published articles investigating a self-management support program for persons with Parkinson’s disease were combined to form a new data set, and analyzed using qualitative thematic analysis. Results: Three separate, but interrelated, themes were identified, which described the process towards selfmanagement of disease as expressed by the participants of the self-management program. Themes describe the factors important for developing and improving self-management abilities and actions. The results were applied to Orem´s Self-care deficit theory to suggest a model of self-management support in the clinical nursing encounter. Conclusion: This study investigated factors important for self-management and highlighted the unique contribution and focus of nursing support to promote independent self-care.