Assessing Attitudes of Chronic Patients towards Disease Self-management in Singapore

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the attitudes ofpatients in Singapore suffering from chronic disorders towardsself-management of their disease.Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study wasconducted using a questionnaire administered by 2nd yearPharmacy students. Patients with at least one of theseconditions (hypertension, diabetes and/orhypercholesterolemia) in the outpatient pharmacy of a tertiaryhospital were interviewed. Data collected was analysed usingnon-parametric statistics (Chi-square and Spearman’s rho) toassess the association between demographic variables andpatient self-management habits.Results: A total of 211 surveys were collected. More than 50%of patients did not seek further knowledge of their medicalcondition (52.1%). Most of them also could not remembernames of the medications (55.5%). This was largely due to acombination of English illiteracy (26%) and difficultmedication names (25%). Only 18% of patients possessedcompetent self-management habits. An association wasdemonstrated between competent self-management habits andincome (p<0.001), educational attainment (p<0.001) and race(p=0.020).Conclusion: Only a minority of patients currently possesscompetent self-management habits, which may pose a barrierto patient-centred care. Income, educational attainment andrace are important predictors of patient propensity towardsdisease self-management.

Keywords

• Attitudes
• hypercholesterolemia
• hypertension
• diabetes
• self-management