Drivers and barriers to promoting self-care in individuals living with multiple long-term health conditions: a cross-sectional online survey of health and care professionals
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Barber, Susan
Hayhoe, Benedict
Karki, Manisha
El-Osta, Austen
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Background
Self-care is an important part of preventing unwarranted decline in poor health linked to multimorbidity and in maintaining or improving health. Health and social care professionals provide support for self-care, which can positively influence health and care outcomes. It is important to understand the extent to which they perceive their support to be effective and what barriers to its uptake and desired outcomes exist. This study investigated the knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions of front-line staff in England concerning drivers and barriers to promoting self-care in service users with multimorbidity.
Methods
A cross-sectional online survey was administered via the Imperial College Qualtrics platform. Questions were asked about perceived drivers and barriers to promoting self-care in individuals with multimorbidity, including mental health. The quality of the survey was assessed by completing the Checklist for Reporting Results of internet E-Surveys (CHERRIES).
Results
Extant barriers associated with service-users’ ability and opportunity for self-care identified by seventy H&SCPs in England were feelings of loneliness and social isolation (18.9%; n = 54) and mobility and access issues (14.3%; n = 41). The methods most commonly used to support self-care were social prescribing (18%; n = 55), helping service users monitor their symptoms (15.4%;n = 47), and referring to recognised programmes to support self-management (14.1%; n = 43). The factors most identified as positively affecting service users to self-care included knowledge and understanding about the benefits of self-care (92.5%; n = 62), support to improve limitations caused by a health condition (92.5% n = 62), and support to improve mental health and wellbeing (91% n = 61). Gaps in H&SCPs knowledge were reported, including how to improve practical interactions to sustain health seeking behaviours by service users (32.2%; n = 48), health coaching (21.5%; n = 32), and knowledge about effective self-care interventions (20.1%; n = 30). Most respondents (92.9%; n = 64) reported that the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for self-care, and 44.9%(n = 31) agreed that the pandemic had a positive impact on their ability to promote self-care among service users.
Conclusions
Self-care is important for service users who live with multimorbidity. H&SCPs identified loneliness, social isolation, mobility and access to services, and support in understanding or complying with a medical regimen as key obstacles to self-care for service users. Extant barriers identified by H&SCPs were associated with service users’ ability and opportunity to sustain self-care, especially relating to feelings of loneliness and experiences of social isolation, mobility and access issues.
Self-care is an important part of preventing unwarranted decline in poor health linked to multimorbidity and in maintaining or improving health. Health and social care professionals provide support for self-care, which can positively influence health and care outcomes. It is important to understand the extent to which they perceive their support to be effective and what barriers to its uptake and desired outcomes exist. This study investigated the knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions of front-line staff in England concerning drivers and barriers to promoting self-care in service users with multimorbidity.
Methods
A cross-sectional online survey was administered via the Imperial College Qualtrics platform. Questions were asked about perceived drivers and barriers to promoting self-care in individuals with multimorbidity, including mental health. The quality of the survey was assessed by completing the Checklist for Reporting Results of internet E-Surveys (CHERRIES).
Results
Extant barriers associated with service-users’ ability and opportunity for self-care identified by seventy H&SCPs in England were feelings of loneliness and social isolation (18.9%; n = 54) and mobility and access issues (14.3%; n = 41). The methods most commonly used to support self-care were social prescribing (18%; n = 55), helping service users monitor their symptoms (15.4%;n = 47), and referring to recognised programmes to support self-management (14.1%; n = 43). The factors most identified as positively affecting service users to self-care included knowledge and understanding about the benefits of self-care (92.5%; n = 62), support to improve limitations caused by a health condition (92.5% n = 62), and support to improve mental health and wellbeing (91% n = 61). Gaps in H&SCPs knowledge were reported, including how to improve practical interactions to sustain health seeking behaviours by service users (32.2%; n = 48), health coaching (21.5%; n = 32), and knowledge about effective self-care interventions (20.1%; n = 30). Most respondents (92.9%; n = 64) reported that the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for self-care, and 44.9%(n = 31) agreed that the pandemic had a positive impact on their ability to promote self-care among service users.
Conclusions
Self-care is important for service users who live with multimorbidity. H&SCPs identified loneliness, social isolation, mobility and access to services, and support in understanding or complying with a medical regimen as key obstacles to self-care for service users. Extant barriers identified by H&SCPs were associated with service users’ ability and opportunity to sustain self-care, especially relating to feelings of loneliness and experiences of social isolation, mobility and access issues.
Date Issued
2025-03-05
Date Acceptance
2025-01-31
Citation
BMC Public Health, 2025, 25
ISSN
1471-2458
Publisher
BMC
Journal / Book Title
BMC Public Health
Volume
25
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2025. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Identifier
10.1186/s12889-025-21737-0
Subjects
Self-care
Multimorbidity
COVID-19
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
884
Date Publish Online
2025-03-05