Riegel B, De Maria M, Barbaranelli C, Matarese M, Ausili D, Stromberg A, Vellone E, Jaarsma T. Symptom Recognition as a Mediator in the Self-Care of Chronic Illness.
Front Public Health 2022;
10:883299. [PMID:
35655456 PMCID:
PMC9152258 DOI:
10.3389/fpubh.2022.883299]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/24/2022] [Accepted: 04/19/2022] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Background
The recognition of a symptom is needed to initiate a decision to engage in a behavior to ameliorate the symptom. Yet, a surprising number of individuals fail to detect symptoms and delay in addressing early warnings of a health problem.
Purpose
The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that symptom recognition mediates the relationship between monitoring for and management of symptoms of a chronic illness.
Methods
A secondary analysis of existing cross-sectional data. A sample of 1,629 patients diagnosed with one or more chronic conditions was enrolled in the United States (US) (n = 407), Italy (n = 784) and Sweden (n = 438) between March 2015 and May 2019. Data on self-care monitoring, symptom recognition, and self-care management was assessed using the Self-Care of Chronic Illness Inventory. After confirming metric invariance in cultural assessment, we used structural equation modeling to test a mediation model where symptom recognition was conceptualized as the mediator linking self-care monitoring and self-care management with autonomous (e.g., Change your activity level) and consulting behaviors (e.g., Call your healthcare provider for guidance).
Results
Symptom recognition mediated the relation between self-care monitoring and autonomous self-care management behaviors (β = 0.098, β = 0.122, β = 0.081, p < 0.001 for US, Italy, and Sweden, respectively). No mediation effect was found for consulting self-care management behaviors.
Conclusion
Our findings suggests that symptom recognition promotes autonomous self-care behaviors in people with a chronic condition. Self-care monitoring directly affects consulting self-care management behaviors but not through symptom recognition. Further research is needed to fully understand the role of symptom recognition in the self-care process.
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