What is Self Care ?

What does Self Care cover ?

Self care is all that people do to maintain their health, prevent illness, seek treatment or support, manage symptoms of illness and side effects of treatment, accomplish recovery and rehabilitation and manage the impact of chronic illness and disability on their lives and independence.

Self care is a very broad term for this wide range of activities that includes what is also often called self management.

Self care includes the things people do:

  • to maintain their own health (such as brushing teeth regularly, increasing the amount of fruit and vegetables they eat, stopping smoking);
  • when they have symptoms (monitoring how they or the people they care for are, resting, getting advice from the pharmacist and taking medicines); and
  • when they have long-term conditions (planning activities around their symptoms, trying different ways to maintain their 'normal' lives, monitoring their symptoms, taking medications and other treatments).

 

Why is Self Care Important ?

Self Care is not new. People already care for themselves and their families. The vast majority of health care takes place within the home. People watch what they eat, take medicines to manage symptons of minor illness, try to reduce the impact of long term illness by finding ways around their problems and monitor their own symptoms.

However, people may not have all the support they need to manage as well as they could. They may not have the information they need, health professionals may not help or enable them in their self care activities and the organisation of health may act against them. They could be better supported resulting in better health and hopefully better use of health care resources.

However there is scope for much more, and much better, self-care and self-management of long-term illness in Scotland. Around 40% of GP time is spent dealing with patients with minor ailments; 75% A&E attendances are for self-treatable minor cases. Many people with ulcerative colitis treat relapses themselves without getting professional advice, but people who had agreed a self-management plan are more likely to take appropriate and medically safe decisions.

 

 

 

 

Not all care can be provided by people themselves. There is a spectrum of care ranging from 100% self-care (for example caring for a cold or flu with rest and self-medication) to 100% professional care (for example when someone is unconscious or requires surgery). But in the middle of these two extremes is shared care where people get advice and help from a range of health and social care professionals as equal partners in care, each bringing their own expertise and knowledge, and enhancing peoples' confidence in managing their illnesses.

Promoting self-care, or self-management of long term illnesses, means that health and social care professionals will work to support autonomous decisions that take account of peoples' own experiences, goals and desires as well as best available research evidence, that is they will work with a patient-centred approach.

NMAHPs have a key role in supporting the Scottish people with the information, support to monitor, feedback and resources they need to optimise self-care and self-management. Developments in information and communication technologies in health care open up new opportunties for NMAHPs work to support self-care making significant gains in health possible.

However, this activity needs a rigorous evidence base and its delivery needs to be properly assessed. The Alliance will address this by providing a sound evidence base for NMAHP pratice, ensuring a patient rather than a disease focus to all they do.