Symptom Recognition as a Mediator in the Self-Care of Chronic Illness

• Main Authors: Barbara Riegel (Author), Maddalena De Maria (Author), Claudio Barbaranelli (Author), Maria Matarese (Author), Davide Ausili (Author), Anna Stromberg (Author), Ercole Vellone (Author), Tiny Jaarsma (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A., 2022-05-01T00:00:00Z.
• Subjects: article
• Online Access: Connect to this object online.
• Notes: 2296-2565; 10.3389/fpubh.2022.883299
• Keywords: self-care; self-management; chronic illness; chronic disease; symptom perception; interoception; Public aspects of medicine; RA1-1270
• Source: Frontiers in Public Health, Vol 10 (2022)

BackgroundThe 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.PurposeThe 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.MethodsA 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).ResultsSymptom 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.ConclusionOur 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.