People's preferences for self-management support.

OBJECTIVE

To identify and assess the preferences of people with long-term health conditions toward generalizable characteristics of self-management support interventions, with the objective to inform the design of more person-centered support services.

DATA SOURCES

Primary qualitative and quantitative data collected on a representative sample of individuals with at least one of the fifteen most prevalent long-term conditions in the UK.

STUDY DESIGN

Targeted literature review followed by a series of one-to-one qualitative semistructured interviews and a large-scale discrete choice experiment.

DATA COLLECTION

Digital recording of one-to-one qualitative interviews, one-to-one cognitive interviews, and a series of online quantitative surveys, including two best-worst scaling and one discrete choice experiment, with individuals with long-term conditions.

PRINCIPAL FINDINGS

On average, patients preferred a self-management support intervention that (a) discusses the options available to the patient and make her choose, (b) is individual-based, (c) face to face (d) with doctor or nurse, (e) at the GP practice, (f) sessions shorter than 1 hour, and (g) occurring annually for two-third of the sample and monthly for the rest. We found heterogeneity in preferences via three latent classes, with class sizes of 41% (C1), 30% (C2), and 29% (C3). The individuals' gender [P < 0.05(C1), P < 0.01(C3)], age [P < 0.05(C1), P < 0.05(C2)], type of long-term condition [P < 0.05(C1), P < 0.01(C3)], and presence of comorbidity [P < 0.01(C1), P < 0.01(C3), P < 0.01(C3)] were able to characterize differences between these latent classes and help understand the heterogeneity of preferences toward the above mentioned features of self-management support interventions. These findings were then used to profile individuals into different preference groups, for each of whom the most desirable form of self-management support, one that was more likely to be adopted by the recipient, could be designed.

CONCLUSIONS

We identified several factors that could be used to inform a more nuanced self-management support service design and provision that take into account the recipient's characteristics and preferences.