Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Statistics supporting the need for Chronic Disease Self-Management

The future of medicine is management of chronic disease.

* In 2000, it was estimated that 125 million Americans had 1 or more chronic medical condition.

* This number is expected to increase to 157 million by 2020.[1]

* Moreover, about 60 million have multiple chronic illnesses, a number that could rise to 81 million by 2020.

Are YOU prepared for Chronic Disease Self-Management? Assessment Tool

Self-Efficacy has been defined as the ability to "self-manage" your own symptoms toward maximizing your quality of life. It assumes that:

1) You HONESTLY know you body and yourself and your symptom impairments and are willing to partner with your health care team to identify, use and maintain whatever "intervention mechanisms" determined for your particular symptom (i.e., medication, exercise, rest, etc.).
2) You are willing to know what you can and cannot do and are willing to seek assistance when necessary.

If you want to determine if you ready for Chronic Disease Self-Management, please consider taking this test from the Stanford Patient Education Research Center on "Chronic Disease Self-Efficacy":

http://patienteducation.stanford.edu/research/secd32.html