Self-Management Europe Alert

ISSUE 04 – October 2022: SUPPORTIVE CONVERSATIONS FOR BEHAVIOUR CHANGE

This is the fourth issue of the Alert of Self-Management Europe. These Alerts aim to contribute to greater awareness and accessibility of self-management support for patients, especially in those living with a chronic condition. The Alerts address healthcare professionals, managers and other stakeholders looking for practical recommendations how to implement practices that enhance self-management and patient empowerment.

Download Self-Management Alert #4 English

About us

Who we are

The European Research and Innovation Centre on patient empowerment and self-management, called “Self-Management Europe”, is a not-for-profit partnership of organisations working on patient empowerment and self-management with a special focus on chronic diseases.

It is an exploitation initiative of the COMPAR-EU project with the aim of developing the potential of people, professionals, organisations, systems, and communities for creating a society that strengthens empowerment and self-management in people with chronic diseases. Through capacity building, the centre provides knowledge, skills, motivation, and competency to people to act as leaders of self-management and empowerment enhancement in everyday life to improve health and quality of life for all.

The centre is a Joint Venture initiative formed currently by a multidisciplinary team led by the Avedis Donabedian Research Institute (FAD), the Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research (Nivel), OptiMedis, and the European Patient´s Forum (EPF) and working in collaboration with its affiliate members: The Institute for Medical Technology Assessment (iMTA), Iberoamerican Cochrane Centre – Fundacio privada institut de recerca de L’hospital de la Santa creu i Sant pau (IR-HSCSP), and the University of Ioannina (UOI) as endorsement organisations. Synergies from the work and competences developed by these partners make it possible to advance the global scope on effective self-management, empowerment, and patient-centred care of people with chronic conditions.

We strive to become a European centre of reference providing the most updated and innovative multidisciplinary scientific knowledge to address and improve patient empowerment and self-management in policy and practice. The centre supports members’, organisations and individuals working on patient empowerment and self-management in the EU through policy and project development, knowledge and expertise exchange, research, networking, and communications.

Whilst there are various ongoing initiatives in Europe to support self-help and self-management with whom we will work in partnership. However, our centre addresses the critical gap of accelerating the translation of critical research findings in practical applications to benefit patients, organisational and clinical processes and health innovations.

Objectives

Our mission is to help stakeholder’s decision-making by providing, creating, and disseminating new and innovative knowledge for better self-management and patient empowerment with a special emphasis on chronic conditions.

Our main objectives are:

• Providing updated (scientific) knowledge on patient empowerment and self-management.
• Promoting research and generating new knowledge on how to improve self-management with special emphasis on vulnerable people and chronic conditions.

Why this focus

Self-management is defined as “what individuals, families and communities do with the intention to promote, maintain, or restore health and to cope with illness and disability with or without the support of health professionals.” (European Commission, 2015).

For people living with chronic illness, self-management requires that a person has self-efficacy (confidence in one’s ability to cope with the condition), which entails having the skills to self-monitor the symptoms and clinical markers of their condition, understand associated implications, and adjust behaviours (e.g. life-style, treatment adherence/ compliance, work or other daily activities) and treatment accordingly.

The evidence base on the effectiveness of self-management has increased substantially in recent years. What is needed now is to translate this evidence into practical applications that have a direct impact on those living with a chronic illness. This requires working closely with patient organisations, provider organisations, professional organisations, and the health industry at large.

Team

The centre will be led by consortium partners of the COMPAR-EU project from Nivel, FAD, OptiMedis, and EPF.

It will be managed by a steering committee including the following persons:

Steering Committee

The Steering Committee is responsible for guiding and approving the policy and activities of the centre. Each year, all centre members come together in a joint meeting. Each member has a decision role in the activities for the next year.

The Steering Committee has the competence to:

• Approve the annual report;
• Approve the annual accounts and budget;
• Consider and approve the annual work programme;
• Accept and exclude members;
• Amend the statutes and dissolve the research centre.

Selected projects of the founding members

COMPAR-EU: Identifying, comparing, and ranking the most effective and cost-effective self-management interventions for adults in Europe

PROSTEP: Promoting Self-Management for chronic diseases in Europe

FRAG MICH: Patient experience with patient safety in ambulatory care

PaRIS Survey (Patient-reported indicators surveys): International Survey of People Living with Chronic Conditions

HPH: International Network of Health Promoting Hospitals and Health Services

DNGfK: Deutsches Netzwerk Gesundheitsfördernder Krankenhäuser und Gesundheitseinrichtungen

Contact

Dr Carola Orrego, Deputy Director

Avedis Donabedian Research Institute (FAD)

+34 93 207 66 08

contact@self-management.eu

Partnerships

Self-Management Europe is made up of organisations leading in research on chronic diseases, self-management, and empowerment, working together to reduce health inequalities and improve health and wellbeing for all.

We aim to work with like-minded organisations to help people and organisations maximise the benefits of self-management.

Through our collaborations we aim to:

• Expand expertise and professional networks;
• Build capacity for research, policys and interventions through workshops, webinars, seminars and knowledge exchange activities;
• Enhance opportunities to participate in European projects with other members of Self-Management Europe and receive support by research applications;
• Lead or participate in thematic working groups to exchange expertise with researchers/ members in other countries;
• Amplify members´ own research or your organisation´s messages and outputs by sharing on our website/newsletter;
• Receive opportunity alerts for funding, collaboration, and capacity building opportunities;
• Help to set strategic directions of European research and policy on self-management, empowerment and chronic disease by voting during annual meetings for the programme of the centre;
• Enables shared learning, and technology transfer;
• Higher opportunities for new research projects and joint applications for funds;
• Increase citation index and publication opportunities of participating centres;
• Creates opportunities for innovation and transfer of self-management research for mHealth applications.

What do we offer?

• Research tools (search strategies, questionnaires, taxonomy)
• Consultancy
• Teaching (research expertise)
• Implementation research on self-management
  • Provide new evidence of effective strategies to improve self-management
• Research network for self-management
  • Updated literature on the field (RCTs).
  • Searching machine on available articles by topic
  • List of research gaps
  • Search strategies
• Research solutions and innovations
  • COMPAR-EU Platform
  • Extraction forms from already available RCTs
• Primary research and providing research and evaluation support to self-management and empowerment projects
• Knowledge and information exchange on new research and evidence
• Discussion and specific interest