Reducing the chronic disease burden in China: tailoring a self-management intervention among Chinese people with chronic lung disease
Abstract
Many Chinese people suffer from chronic diseases like hypertension and chronic lung disease (CLD), leading to a significant disease burden. Self-management intervention (SMI) can help improve patients’ quality of life and reduce the disease burden. But most research on SMI has been done in high-income countries, while over 599 million Chinese people suffer from chronic diseases. Implementing effective SMI in high–income countries for Chinese people with chronic diseases is possible. However, such SMI might not work well in China because of differences in economics and culture. To meet this end, this thesis aimed to tailor a proven-effective SMI tackling CLD, developed and tested in the Netherlands, to the Chinese context. The tailoring steps included identifying the Chinese context, selecting the SMI and mode of delivery, identifying factors influencing the SMI implementation, and integrating SMI into the Chinese context. The results found that SMI – developed and tested in the Netherlands – could be tailored in China. The tailored SMI could help Chinese people with CLD improve their health outcomes and reduce the disease burden, consequently can optimize resource use locally. Other researchers could use the research experience in this thesis to tailor other SMIs targeting other chronic diseases in other cultures.
