Exploring Components and Effects of Self-Management Interventions for Young People with Chronic Conditions

Abstract

Self-management support can help young people with chronic conditions to deal with the physical, emotional, and social consequences of their condition in daily life. This chapter reviews the content, possible effective components and outcomes of self-management interventions (SMI) for these young people. Although attention for social consequences (role management) and emotional well-being (emotional management) increased the last 5 years, more than half of the reviewed SMI were still solely focused on medical management. Not much can be said about promising intervention components of SMI, since a lot is unclear and for most of the combinations of components and outcome categories, no conclusive evidence was found due to the small number of studies that included these combinations. Still, available evidence showed that, depending on the selected outcome (i.e., aims of the SMI), promising intervention elements can be: a focus on medical management, monodisciplinary delivery, delivered by a psychologist, individual, or group (they are complementary to each other) and delivered in a clinic. However, this does not imply that other intervention components are not effective, since no evidence found does not necessarily mean that these other components are not effective. Finally, relatively little is known about components that affect school attendance, depressive feelings, anxiety, and adherence.