Self-efficacy in Activities of daily living and symptom management in people with dizziness: a focus group study

Abstract

Background: Self-efficacy is associated with health status, health behaviour and health behaviour change in various chronic health conditions.

Purpose: To describe self-efficacy in relation to Activities of daily living and symptom management in people with dizziness.

Material and methods: Thirteen women and three men, aged 45–82 years, with persistent dizziness (duration 4 months to 30 years) were recruited from an outpatient physiotherapy unit. A qualitative study was conducted using four focus groups and one individual interview and was then analysed with qualitative content analysis.

Results: The participants conveyed, in-depth information concerning two predefined main categories. Self-efficacy in Activities of daily living was related to challenging body positions and motions, environments, social activities, work tasks, and complex cognitive behaviours. Self-efficacy in symptom management was related to distress and aggravated symptoms, unfamiliar environment, and unknown people.

Conclusions: People with dizziness describe how self-efficacy for specific activities varies according to the perceived difficulty of the task, the context of the activity, and day-to-day variations in general wellbeing. The results underscore the importance of targeting self-efficacy in the rehabilitation of people with dizziness. Our findings can guide the rehabilitation process by providing a deeper understanding of self-efficacy judgements in relation to Activities of daily living and symptom management in people with dizziness.

Implication for rehabilitation

• This study adds important in-depth knowledge to the rehabilitation area on self-efficacy beliefs in relation to Activities of daily living and symptom management in people with dizziness.

• Self-efficacy for specific activities varies according to the perceived difficulty of the task, the context in which the activity takes place and day-to-day variations in perceived general well-being.

• The results can be used as a topic list to guide rehabilitation efforts in exploring and intervening aspects of people’s everyday activities that are affected by low self-efficacy judgements.

• Activities perceived to be crucial to everyday life and important for well-being should be targeted in rehabilitation to increase self-efficacy and thereby activity performance and participation in people with dizziness.

Keywords:

• Self-efficacy
• Social cognitive theory
• dizziness
• activities of daily living
• symptom management
• focus groups
• disability

Acknowledgements

The authors would especially like to express their gratitude to the participants for sharing their experiences of living with persistent dizziness and how these experiences are related to self-efficacy in ADLs and symptom management. Moreover, the authors would like to thank Professor Anne Söderlund at Mälardalen University for valuable input concerning issues on operationalisation of the construct, self-efficacy.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by funding from the Centre for Clinical Research in Dalarna, Dalarna University, and the Department of Physiotherapy, Falun Hospital.