The use of self-management strategies for stroke rehabilitation: a scoping review

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Self-management is generally considered a dynamic and collaborative process by individuals and caregivers to manage a chronic condition. Self-management has recently emerged as a promising strategy for stroke rehabilitation. This scoping review aims to examine and summarize self-management strategies utilized by stroke survivors for stroke rehabilitation.

Methods

PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL (EBSCO), Embase, and ProQuest were searched for articles published between January 2010 and December 2021. Studies were selected if they were published in English in a peer-reviewed journal, utilized a non-experimental research design, and focused on adult stroke survivors. All relevant information from the included articles was extracted in a systematic way using a pre-developed data extraction form. Two authors performed data extraction and quality evaluation independently. All issues were resolved through discussion among the authors.

Results

We narratively summarized the findings of 15 quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method studies, including a total of 1,494 stroke survivors. The stroke survivors used a range of self-management strategies for their stroke rehabilitation, including domains related to lifestyle, social support, communication, knowledge and information, and goal-setting. Gender, age, stroke-related disability, fatigue, self-management education, social support, and communication with others were found to be associated with self-management use in stroke rehabilitation.

Conclusions

This scoping review provides an important overview on stroke survivors’ use of self-management strategies and their experience. Their use of self-management strategies is complicated and multifaceted, comprising several domains and involving a diverse range of approaches and personal experiences. However, we identified several gaps in the literature and more research is required.

KEYWORDS:

• Stroke
• survivors
• self-management
• strategies
• rehabilitation
• review

Acknowledgments

MSR acknowledges the PhD scholarships support of the University of Technology Sydney.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10749357.2022.2127651.

Disclosure Statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial or personal interests.

Ethical approval

Ethical approval is not applicable for this literature review.

Availability of data and materials

The data used in this study are available from the corresponding author, upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.