Self-management health education for chronic HIV infection

This paper describes the design and implementation, and presents qualitativ e data on the Positive Self-Management Program (PSMP), a group health educa tion programme to help patients actively participate ill their HIV/AIDS dis ease and symptom management. PSMP design was guided by the needs and concer ns of HIV patients and their caregivers, and by social cognitive theory. Pr ogramme Participants meet weekly in interactive health education groups for seven sessions, and complete a structured curriculum that teaches self-man agement skills and information to patients: symptom assessment and manageme nt, medication use, physical exercise, relaxation, doctor-patient communica tion and nutrition. Each group was led by two trained peer-leaders (one HIV -positive). Structured, open-ended telephone interviews were conducted with a sample of PSMP participants during evaluation of the programme. Response s to PSMP were favourable, emphasizing the importance of the contracting pr ocess, group social support and the PSMP resource book provided. Subjects a lso described variation in HIV knowledge and experience among group partici pants, and emphasized the importance of changes in health-related attitudes and behaviours as a result of PSMP education. These results suggest that a self-management approach to HIV patient education is feasible aid accepted , and could become a useful health education technique in patients with chr onic HIV infection.