Interaction styles of health care professionals supporting patients with chronic conditions in general hospitals towards self-management: one-year follow-up data from a brief educational intervention

Abstract

ABSTRACT Education and training have been identified as a potential way of engaging health-care professionals in patient self-management support. However, there is a need to distil what methods work best to support self-management in different settings, and consequently about which frameworks should be part of educational and training initiatives. We investigated in Ugandan health-care professionals working with patients with chronic conditions whether following a 10-h workshop on using the self-determination theory (SDT) framework resulted in higher levels of autonomy-support and structuring and lower levels of control and chaos 12 months post-workshop compared to health-care professionals who did not follow the workshop. Situations In Self-management support – HealthCare Professionals (SIS-HCP) scores from 55 health-care professionals (42.5 ± 9.2 years; 58.2% female) who followed a workshop were compared using unpaired Student’s t tests with a convenience sample of 85 health-care professionals (39.9 ± 13.0 years; 62.3% female) who did not follow the workshop. Those who followed the workshop reported higher SIS-HCP autonomy-support (Cohen’s d = 0.87, i.e. large effect) and structuring (Cohen’s d = 0.84, i.e. large effect) and lower SIS-HCP controlling (Cohen’s d = 0.64, i.e. moderate effect) and chaos (Cohen’s d = 0.71, i.e. moderate effect) than those who did not follow the workshop. Health-care professionals trained in SDT principles have one-year post-training a more supportive and structuring and a less controlling and chaotic interaction style than those who did not follow the workshop. Future research should investigate whether also self-management competencies in chronic patients can be improved via training health-care professionals.