Do group consultations help promote patient self-management?
- Moore, Carley
This article has been double-blind peer reviewed
In this article…
• The importance of self-management for people with long-term conditions
• The concept of activation to promote confidence in self-management
• How group consultations may help boost activation
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Abstract
People with long-term conditions have the greatest healthcare needs and being able to self-manage their condition can improve outcomes for them and the NHS as a whole. The term ‘activation’ describes the knowledge, skills and confidence a person has in managing their own care and can be measured using the Patient Activation Measure. At our general practice, we have recently introduced group consultations for people with diabetes and I was interested in whether this would influence activation. This mixed methods review, examines both the quantitative data to assess whether group consultations had an influence on PAM scores and the qualitative data to identify themes. Quantitative studies suggested that group consultations do increase PAM scores while qualitative data indicated that attending group consultations does develop knowledge, skills, and confidence, most notably through relationships with peers and clinicians.