What is it?
Implementation of a Self Management Program for people with chronic diseases in Germany.
INSEA (Initiative für Selbstmanagement und aktives Leben) offers the evidence-based self-management courses of the Stanford University’s Chronic Disease Self-Management Program (CDSMP) in Germany.
How does it work?
Patients and their relatives meet once a week over a period of six weeks in standardized course parts. They learn key skills for self-management, such as “making decisions”, “setting goals”, “planning actions” or “preparing for medical consultations”. And they exchange experiences with each other. The course is open to all those affected, regardless of their type of chronic illness.
Further Information
Due to increasing prevalence, chronic diseases are becoming more and more a priority in health care. In Germany alone, more than half of all people over 65, but also many younger, are affected. In addition to good medical treatment, an important part of their care must be to encourage and support them in dealing with the challenges posed by the disease. Because if they learn to self-manage their daily life with chronic conditions, they may increase their Self-Efficacy at the same time and benefit from a better quality of life.
That is why since 2015, INSEA (Initiative für Selbstmanagement und aktives Leben) offers the evidence-based self-management courses of the Stanford University’s Chronic Disease Self-Management Program (CDSMP) in Germany. Patients and their relatives meet once a week over a period of six weeks in standardized course parts. They learn key skills for self-management, such as “making decisions”, “setting goals”, “planning actions” or “preparing for medical consultations”. And they exchange experiences with each other. The course is open to all those affected, regardless of their type of chronic illness.
INSEA aims to implement the courses throughout whole Germany. A network structure of funders, supporters, providers and course leaders was created for this purpose. Leading persons meet in a steering group, decide jointly on future plans and maintain exchange with providers in other European and non-European countries. Parallel, a national coordination office has been established at the Hannover Medical School. From there, the courses are scientifically evaluated and the institutional location partners in Germany are networked, supported and sought after for implementation. Those partners in turn offer the program in their regional environment. At the moment there are three of them – a health education institution in lower Saxony (Patientenuniversitaet Hannover), self-help contact points in Bavaria (SeKo Bayern), and a Health and Physicians Network in Baden-Wuerttemberg (Gesundes Kinzigtal GmbH). They take over the recruitment of participants, manage the course leaders and organize everything related to the course realization. Once or twice a year they also jointly organize national meetings of the 80 German course leaders – for exchange, for supervision but also for getting to know each other and stay connected.
So far 120 courses with about 1,200 participants have been held, more will come. Evaluation results show among other things that the participants can improve their Self-Efficacy and self-management skills in the courses and can integrate what they have learned into their everyday life on a long-term basis.