Talking about Health
long-term conditions study
Lead researchers
Melanie Taylor
Claire Budge
Talking about Health is a 3 year longitudinal study recently completed by MidCentral District Health Board, in partnership with THINK Hauora (formerly the Central PHO).
The study explored the patient experience of living with one or more long-term conditions (LTCs), and the care provided within the general practice setting to support their LTC management.
The reports are available on the THINK Hauora website, including separate reports describing the findings from Māori participants (see links to some reports below).
There are also a series of articles about the study in Kai Tiaki. Links to these are provided below.
The study explored 6 aspects of LTC management: health status, self-care challenges, healthy behaviours, patient activation, general practice interactions, and care planning and goal setting.
The findings and recommendations are extensive. However, the overriding theme is that to deliver better and more effective LTC management services, providers need to think beyond disease-state management to a broader more holistic focus of helping people live well with their LTC and supporting patient empowerment and self-management.
In this video, Melanie Taylor and Claire Budge talk about the study and describe some of the main findings.
Articles published in Kai Tiaki
April 2020. Study overview and self-care challenges. This article was first published in the April 2020 issue of Kai Tiaki Nursing New Zealand.
May 2020. Experiences and self-management of chronic pain. This article was first published in the May 2020 issue of Kai Tiaki Nursing New Zealand.
July 2020. Self-management of long-term conditions – reasons given for positive and negative changes. This article was first published in the July 2020 issue of Kai Tiaki Nursing New Zealand.
September 2020. Type 2 diabetes: knowledge and self-management. This article was first published in the September 2020 issue of Kai Tiaki Nursing New Zealand.
November 2020: Experiences with the general practice team and support for self-management. This article was first published in the November 2020 issue of Kai Tiaki Nursing New Zealand.
Resources on this website that support the practice points in the Kai Tiaki articles
Health literacy
Information and resources about health literacy can be found here
Training modules
Training and resources designed to build your health literacy skills can be found here
Take Charge resources
Care planning, self management and self monitoring tools available in the Take Charge Toolkits
Assessment
Find out more about using assessment tools and questionnaires here.
Asking good questions
Become skilled at using Ask, Build, Check
Become familiar with questions to ask in different SMS situations
Understanding a person’s social network
Develop a care map
Knowing what community services and SME groups are available locally
Examples of community group activities
Self-management education options
Being informed about disability allowance and mobility issues
Knowing how to manage pain
The Take Charge resources include specific information on pain, along with many other resources to support sleep, relaxation, keeping active, managing medications, making changes and much more.
Addressing equity
Talking about Health reports
References
Signal L, Semper K, Stairmand J, et al. A walking stick in one hand and a chainsaw in the other: patients’ perspectives of living with multimorbidity New Zealand Medical Journal. 2017;130(1455).
Stairmand J, Gurney J, Stanley J, et al. The impact of multi-morbidity on people's lives: a cross-sectional survey New Zealand Medical Journal. 2018;131(1477).
McKinlay E, Graham S, Horrill P. Culturally and linguistically diverse patients' views of multimorbidity and general practice care Journal of Primary Health Care. 2015;7(3):228-235.
Sherwin HN, McKeown M, Evans MF, Bhattacharyya OK. The waiting room “wait” From annoyance to opportunity Can Fam Physician. 2013 May;59(5):479-81.