Enhancing self-care in the housebound V3
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Enhancing self-care through opportunistic motivational techniques, used by community nurses, while caring for housebound patients with long-term conditions: a mixed method feasibility study
IRAS ID
144901
Contact name
Barley Elizabeth
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King's College London
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 1 months, 1 days
Research summary
The prevalence of people living with long-term condition (LTC) such as heart disease, diabetes or arthritis in England exceeds 16.5 million, and the number of those with more than one LTC continues to grow. This population uses a large proportion of health service resources. Advancing age and LTCs increase the likelihood of becoming housebound, which has a detrimental effect on health and quality of life. Health policy advocates a health service model of empowerment and self-care. People who live with LTCs are often very knowledgeable about how to look after their health but find it difficult to adjust their behaviour to achieve this.
Motivational techniques have been shown to bring about behaviour change through changing the style of communication from directive to collaborative. The use of patient-centred conversational style of communication has been shown to elicit more willingness to change than professional-led directive consultations. Community nurses are in a unique position to influence housebound patients to play a greater part in caring for themselves, preventing complications in their long-term conditions and further ill health.
This study intends to test the feasibility and acceptability of training community nurse in Understanding Behaviour Change, a communication technique which uses motivational interviewing to guide patients to change their behaviour. The opportunistic use of motivational techniques to create participatory relationships between patients and community nurses potentially represents an effective intervention to enable patients with LTCs to optimise the way they care for themselves.
Motivational interviewing techniques have been widely demonstrated to bring about behaviour change but have not been studied in the context of changing the style of communication between housebound patients and the professionals caring for them.
The aim of the study is to test the intervention in a clinical setting in order to inform a definitive RCT.REC name
London - Fulham Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/LO/1040
Date of REC Opinion
15 Jul 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion