The bridge between theory and practice for supporting patient self-management: A clinical perspective for physiotherapists

Abstract

Self-management behaviours, if constructively used, can assist people with long-term conditions to manage their health and wellbeing more effectively. The role of clinicians is to provide support for patient self-management because we know that incorporating constructive behaviours into daily life can be challenging for patients. The aim of this paper is to provide an opportunity for clinicians to understand how the content and delivery of interventions could support patient self-management. In this paper, we therefore highlight a number of theoretical frameworks that may assist clinicians to explicitly identify components of their interactions with patients. As an illustrative example, we use a self-management programme for fatigue, developed with people with multiple sclerosis (MS) in New Zealand. We believe that with a better understanding of behaviour change processes, clinicians have an opportunity to see the full range of behaviour change techniques (BCTs) available to them and how these could be used, to think more carefully about the BCTs they embed in their practice and, therefore, to critically reflect on how they could better support patient selfmanagement.