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Social Support Helps Patients With Chronic Disease

If you or someone close to you is living with a chronic condition — such as heart failure or diabetes — you probably know how important lifestyle factors are in managing the condition successfully. Now, new research conducted at UAB has found that social support seems to help patients with chronic conditions follow the lifestyle recommendations that are so important in managing their disease — such as diet, exercise, and keeping a close watch on symptoms.

“We’ve found that social support is vital in the management of chronic diseases — especially for heart failure patients,” explains UAB Assistant Professor of Preventive Medicine Raegan Durant, MD, MPH. “Although clinical factors have been well studied in the management of chronic diseases, we’re finding that social support is often overlooked as a potential intervention that leads to improved outcomes for patients.”

Social Support and Heart Failure Patients

Dr. Durant and his colleagues at UAB are conducting a year-long study, currently in progress, to determine the effects of social support on outcomes for heart failure patients. Heart failure — a condition in which the heart can’t pump blood as well as it should — accounts for a million hospitalizations annually and is also the number one reason for hospitalizations among Medicare beneficiaries.

“As with most chronic conditions, specific lifestyle factors are very important for the optimal management of heart failure,” explains Dr. Durant. “These lifestyle factors include self-care behaviors such as carefully monitoring one’s weight daily, adhering to certain dietary restrictions, and recognizing problematic symptoms such as swelling or shortness of breath.”

Preliminary findings of the UAB study indicate that social support — having someone available to answer questions, provide encouragement, or give information – seems to increase patients’ ability to practice self-care behaviors. “We know that adherence to self-care behaviors improves outcomes for heart failure patients,” says Dr. Durant. “We’re hoping our continued research can determine the types of social support that are most effective at improving outcomes.”

Dr. Durant adds that the findings about the role of social support are especially important for older adults who live alone or don’t have family members to provide encouragement and information about self-care behaviors. “Social support interventions should ideally be tailored to the patients’ individual needs for social support. Some older adults have family members who regularly provide assistance, while others have very little support from others.”

An additional topic of Dr. Durant’s ongoing research is whether social support lowers hospitalization rates for heart failure patients. “Other studies have suggested that social support does seem to lower hospitalization rates, and we should have informative findings related to this question within the next few months.”

The Role of Community Outreach Workers

Dr. Durant and his colleagues at UAB envision an increased role for community outreach workers in providing social support to older adults with a variety of chronic conditions. Community outreach workers are individuals who are specially trained in delivering healthcare information and providing support and encouragement.

“Messages about self-care behaviors may be more easily delivered and received from a peer — a person in the community — outside the healthcare setting,” Dr. Durant explains. He stresses that the clinical setting is not always the best place to deliver and receive information, and health providers are not always the best communicators of that information.

“Using hospital and community resources, community outreach workers can serve as a bridge between healthcare workers and patients to deliver accurate information, guidance, and encouragement. This method would give patients — especially those with little or no family assistance — the social support that is so critical in following self-care behaviors that help to manage their condition successfully.”

Article last updated: June 17, 2009 1:54 PM