Views of healthcare professionals on training for and delivery of a fatigue self-management program for persons with multiple sclerosis

Abstract

Purpose: To explore the experiences and perspectives of the healthcare professionals who were trained to and delivered “Minimise Fatigue, Maximise Life” (MFML), a patient-centered group-based fatigue self-management program for persons with multiple sclerosis.

Methods: A qualitative descriptive study with semi-structured individual interviews at two time points. Data were analyzed for themes. Six healthcare professional facilitators who were trained to and delivered “Minimise Fatigue, Maximise Life” participated in a first interview, and five in a second. Participants were all female, aged between 23 and 66 years old and either occupational therapists or physiotherapists.

Results: Two themes were evident in the data. The first, “Reciprocity,” showed how the healthcare professionals were trained to deliver MFML, then reciprocated in the program delivery as active participants, which then provided feelings of personal reward and expansion of their usual practice. The second, “Enhancements,” encompassed suggested directions for future training and deliveries of the program.

Conclusion: This study suggests that multidimensional patient centered interventions also benefit the healthcare professionals who provide them because it expands their practice. Healthcare professionals who recognize the benefits of innovative and patient-centered interventions, supports both the patients with whom they work, and adds value to the health services they provide.

Implications for rehabilitation

• Healthcare professionals who undergo training to facilitate delivery of self-management programs, which are based in an empowerment model, report an enhancement or expansion of their traditional practice.

• An empowerment-based program delivered in a group situation encourages and facilitates people to draw on their own and peers’ knowledge and expertise to problem solve for self-management.

• Healthcare professional education should facilitate the healthcare professional’s learning, and ability and willingness to acknowledge the richness in knowledge and expertise held by their patients.

Keywords:

• Multiple sclerosis
• fatigue
• self-care
• education
• patient
• healthcare professional

Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge the healthcare professionals who were interviewed for this study, and Lesang Abotseng, Samantha Harvey, and Rasela-Joy Faleatua (undergraduate students at the University of Otago, School of Physiotherapy at the time of the study) for their part in the analysis of the first set of interviews.

Ethical approval

The University of Otago Human Ethic Committee (Health) approved this study (H13/112). All participants gave written informed consent before data collection began.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a University of Otago Research Grant [110289.01.R.LX].