The Crucial Role of Professional Guidance in Self-management: Insights from Elderly Multimorbidity Patients
Abstract:
Elderly patients
experience chronic illnesses with multimorbidity. Multimorbidity is defined as
having two or more chronic conditions in an individual at the same time which
may occur simultaneously, episodic or during their lifetime. Therefore, elderly
patients, like any other patient with multimorbidity need to develop self-management
skills to cope with their health and improve their quality of life. However,
this comes with its challenges. As such multimorbidity elderly patients require
professional expert guidance. This study aims to explore the perceived
importance of professional expert guidance in self-management among elderly
patients with multimorbidity which will facilitate improvement of health
outcomes and quality of life. A qualitative interpretative phenomenological
study using an in-depth interview guide with 10 purposively sampled elderly
patients with multimorbidity was done. The study was conducted at the University
Teaching Hospitals – Adult Hospital in Lusaka, Zambia. Interpretative phenomenological
analysis was used to analyse the data that provided 3 themes which included knowledge
and expertise, Personal engagement considering learning needs and Control of
one’s life as important aspects in professional expert guidance. The study concluded that professionals dealing
with elderly multimorbidity patients need to have adequate knowledge and
expertise through training in areas such as ageing, multimorbidity and
self-management to make it easy to give guidance to patients and their carers
and also to engage these patients and give them chance to manage their own lives.
The study demonstrates novelty being the first study that brings out insights
on professional expert guidance on self-management as they relate to elderly
multimorbidity patients.
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