A reflective process used to develop a health professional led colitis self‐management programme

Abstract

People with colitis experiencing poor quality of life and attending hospital out‐patients were invited to a self‐management course, based on patient‐centred and experiential learning philosophies, with self‐efficacy as the model for health behaviour change. The course was facilitated by a health psychologist and gastro‐intestinal (GI) specialist research nurse and consisted of six sessions each lasting two‐and‐a‐half hours. Twelve complete courses were delivered at six hospital sites. After each session reflections were recorded by the facilitators in a diary. For two of these courses a reflective diary was also kept by a participant observer. After the completion of these two courses, the facilitator and participant diaries were analysed together using the framework method allowing critical reflection and perspective transformation. There was concordance between diaries about events and problems, but sometimes perspectives and interpretation differed leading to insights about the role of the health professional educator.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to our patients who have collaborated with us on this project through their active participation in the course. They have taught us so much about ourselves.

This study was funded by the Community Fund, with the National Association for Colitis and Crohn’s Disease (NACC) as the partner charity. However, the views presented in this paper are those of the authors’ alone.