Self management approach at King Fahd University Hospital in Saudi Arab

Self management approach at King Fahd University Hospital in Saudi Arabia There are many diseases in the world that affect patient’s life. WOH has mentioned that chronic conditions might lead to disability in the future which leads to spend a lot of money to treat patients (WHO, 2005). The prevalence of chronic diseases like cardiovascular diseases, obesity, overweight and diabetes has become a great cause of concern for the Saudi Arabian government. In addition, the number of patients with chronic diseases is increasing. The main reasons for that are people in Saudi Arabia have bad lifestyle, unhealthy diet and lack of physical activities (Maheshwari, 2011). To control chronic diseases and prevent patients from getting worse, we need to distinguish between chronic diseases and cute diseases. Chronic condition is one that 'has been (or is likely to be) present for at least 6 months, or is terminal' (The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners 2000). To treat chronic diseases we need to change lifestyle and we need to consider many things such as cost of drugs, availability of the medication, health providers. In addition, all health professional and patients should be aware about self management. Many studies proved that self-management is an important component of effective management of people with chronic conditions. It is a frame work that consists patients, family and health providers. Self management program can improve the quality of life, increasing patients information, decreasing hospitalization and visiting physician, improving patient's behaviors and improving the health care system for chronic diseases (Epping-Jordan et al. 2004). Unfortunately, Saudi Arabia does not have any self management approach to ... ...which may led to increase patient's confidence (self management toolkit 2011).Self management toolkit shows good communication strategies for improving self management in patients with chronic diseases which are engaging the patients, exploring importance ambivalence and collaborative action planning (self management toolkit 2011). The good self model that can be implanted in my service is Flinders model. The Flinders model of chronic disease management has been developed by Dr. Malcolm Battersby and associates at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia. There are many reasons for using Flinders model. Firstly, it is a patient-centered care model and easy to be used. Another reason is that it creates a good partnership between health care providers and patients where the patient can be the decision maker and the health care provider can be facilitator.