Patient-Reported Outcome-based self-management of patients
How to interact with your patients to encourage self-management?
Facilitating patient self-management is fostered by mutual trust and active partnership. Find some suggestions in the following table:
| Instead of… | Try… | PROMs facilitate by... |
|---|---|---|
| assuming well-being/symptom burden without the patient’s perspective | treating patients as experts on their life to be asked and listened | capturing individual perceptions and highlighting what matters most |
| setting goals from your professional perspective without clarifying the patient’s needs and preferences, assuming the patient shares the same values and priorities | setting goals and developing strategies that fit the patient’s context, beliefs, and resources collaboratively, based on patient input and data | quantifying outcomes important to patients and thus providing a basis for discussion, shared decision-making and follow-up evaluation |
| giving generic feedback (e.g., nausea advice when nausea isn’t an issue) | giving personalised feedback tailored to the current needs | monitoring which issues are currently relevant (e.g. issues with moderate or severe reported burden) and allowing a focused discussion on these and resulting support needs |
“The most important thing is to have access to reliable information. There is so much mis-information out there on the internet. [...] Web-based information should be designed with a branching or hierarchical structure so that you can move through to the specific issues you want help with and do not have to read through all the possible problems. Patients need to know when to contact HCPs with clear guidance as to when to move on up from self-help.”
Glasgow et al. 2003; Lin et al. 2022; Detmar et al. 2002