Patient Perspectives on a Tailored Self-Management Education and Support Intervention for Low-Income Seniors With Chronic Health Conditions

BACKGROUND: The Assessing Outcomes of Enhanced Chronic Disease Care Through Patient Education and a Value-based Formulary Study (ACCESS) was a 2 x 2 factorial randomized trial that tested the impact of a tailored self-management education support (SMES) program, which demonstrated a 22% reduction in adverse clinical events. We sought to qualitatively explore participants’ perspectives on the SMES intervention, and the ways in which it may have improved self-management skills. METHODS: We used a qualitative descriptive approach and conducted individual semistructured interviews. We conducted inductive and deductive thematic analysis using NVivo 12 (QSR International, Burlington, MA). RESULTS: We interviewed 20 participants who had recently completed the 3-year SMES intervention. The following 3 main themes emerged from the data: (i) empowerment; (ii) intervention acceptability; and (iii) suggestions for improvement. Regarding empowerment, we identified subthemes of health literacy, self-efficacy, self-management, and active role in health. Several participants reported that empowerment promoted health behaviour change or improved confidence in self-management. Regarding acceptability, we identified subthemes of ease of use and presentation style. Most participants expressed positive feelings toward the intervention and felt that it was easy to understand. Finally, we identified subthemes of learning style, content, and engagement strategies, within the theme of suggestions for improvement. Some participants said that the messages were too general and did not fully address the complex health concerns they had. CONCLUSIONS: Our results highlighted key strategies to promote patient engagement and self-management behaviours and demonstrated how they may have been used to improve clinical endpoints. Additionally, we demonstrated the novel use of marketing principles in SMES interventions.