Health education competence, self-management

Abstract

Background: The health education competence of health professionals who deliver self-management programmes to those with long-term health challenges have been little reported and discussed in either Nordic or international research literature. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to provide a systematic literature review of studies describing key health education competencies. We included both quantitative and qualitative studies as well as a systematic literature review. Method: We conducted a systematic literature search in Medline, Embase, PsychInfo and Cinahl to identify various types of studies describing health education skills in self-management programmes. Results: The studies describe six competence areas considered essential for ensuring patients and service users good outcomes from self-management programmes. These areas are: knowledge and skills in group management, disease and diagnosis, communication, coping and coping strategies, education and personal qualities and attitudes. The quality of the studies varies. Conclusion: The studies emphasise that competence in health education is crucial for ensuring that patients and service users derive benefit from self-management programmes. We need more high-quality research together with efforts to improve the quality of health education training measures and the education of students, health professionals and service user representatives.