Chronic Illness

Examining the issue of self-management and related interventions, this book places these interventions in the context of health care and health care development. It is useful for many courses at the upper undergraduate and postgraduate level, health psychologists, and those in other health science areas, such as nursing, and medical sociology.

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There is a growing emphasis on patient empowerment, which has led to an increasing focus on self-management and the subsequent development of self-management interventions. Many of these interventions are designed and evaluated by health psychologists, however there is currently no text for students that examines the issue of self-management and related interventions. The book will introduce the area of self-management and has the potential to act as a text for many courses at the upper undergraduate and postgraduate level. Readership for the book will include health psychologists in particular, but it will also be relevant for those in other health science areas, notably nursing, medical sociology, etc. The particular approach adopted in the book is one that provides the outline and theoretical underpinnings of self-management interventions. It places these interventions in the context of health care and health care development, underlining the needs and the direction in which health care is going. It will identify the methodological issues related to self-management interventions to indicate the complexity of these to the reader.
The book will use three illnesses in which self-management interventions have been well developed, in order to indicate to the reader the nature and state of the field. These conditions: diabetes, arthritis and asthma each have at least fifty different evaluations of self-management interventions reported in the literature and the book will present these in a coherent way, indicating their content and differing approaches as well as showing their efficacy and effectiveness.