Self-Management for Common Chronic Disease

This article discusses the importance of self-management for common chronic diseases and the need for awareness programs. It explores the strategies and objectives of a self-management program and its impact on the community health status. The article also addresses ethical considerations and evaluates the anticipated outcomes of the program.

Running Head: SELF-MANAGEMENT FOR COMMON CHRONIC DISEASE
Self-Management for Common Chronic Disease
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1Self-Management for Common Chronic Disease
Introduction
Community health is referred as the field of study related to medical and clinical
health that focuses on the protection, maintenance, and enhancement of health status ofa
population communities and group. Community health introduces different program in
society in order to improve the health status of a demographic population (Murdaugh,
Parsons & Pender, 2018). Kentucky Department of Public Health is responsible for
introducing and operating different health study programs for the residents of Kentucky. The
program initiated by the department improves public health and prevents the negative impact
various external factors in to health. Kentucky Department of Health is located in Frankfort
in USA. It has different programs initiated for diabetes, tuberculosis, heart disease, cancer,
oral health complication and cancer. It has also initiated health awareness programs related to
smoking and drinking (Ky.gov, 2019).
Needs assessment
Kentucky Department of Health has initiated different awareness programs but has no
specific programs for chronic disease. According to CDC (2019), chronic disease is referred
as the condition that will last up to 1 year or more than that, based on the treatment or
attention provided. There is no vaccine available for chronic disease. It can be only prevented
by the self-management of the disease. Around 6 out of 10 Americans are suffering from
chronic illness (CDC, 2019). Absence of such program by the health department, increases
the rate of people affected by chronic illness and need to be addressed. Hence due to the
increasing demographic population affected by chronic illness, a self-management program is
required to create awareness which will provide strategic measure to prevent such illness.
There are people who are residing in the rural areas or belongs to low economic class;
poverty rate of USA is 12.3 %. Hence, such populations, does not access to the health care
and also cannot afford the expensive treatment used for chronic illness (Douthit et al., 2015).

2Self-Management for Common Chronic Disease
The organization has developed such programs to meet the need of demographic population
in order to minimize the affected rate and also to ensure that the mortality rate among the
people under the poverty rate should reduce.
As the program will help in the creating awareness regarding the chronic illness by
providing strategic measure to manage or prevent the chronic illness and hence named as
self-management for common chronic disease. The program will help in creating
attentiveness among the residents of Kentucky to adapt different changes in their life style to
decrease the risk of chronic disease. Managing the risk factor associated with the disease,
adapting strategies in enhancing the lifestyle and adaptability to the change are the main
objectives of the program. Along with that, awareness regarding the treatment is also created
for patient who are already suffering from chronic illness.
The program is mainly available for the population who are at the high risk of having
chronic illness. It is available for different cultural groups of the Kentucky with no disparities
and should be modified accordingly. For the self management of chronic disease, it is require
having low calorie or low cholesterol diet, but some population rely on such food and does
not intends to leave it, hence in such cases’ alternatives are created. For example, for the
prevention of chronic illness meat and egg is beneficial, hence in such cases it should be
replaced with soybean in case of vegetarian people (Stanton, Scott & Happell, 2016). In the
program the strategies are recommended to prevent chronic illness such as, change in life
style by implementation of exercise and healthy diet in the daily regime (Grady & Gough,
2014). Along with that, medication is also consumed as prescribed by the doctor to minimize
the risk effect of chronic illness.
The 4 key ethical principles are beneficence, autonomy, non-malficience and justice.
To implement a health program, these entire principles rate kept in consideration. Autonomy

3Self-Management for Common Chronic Disease
of the respondent participating in should be maintained such that their past medical history
family background should be kept private. Beneficience of the program is also considered
before the implementation of the program. For example people should know what are the
benefits thy are getting after participating such as specific diet (less fat less sugar containing
diet) and physical activity that should be used as self management tools for the prevention of
chronic diseases. All the respondents participating in the program should get similar benefits.
Biasness with respect to gender and background should be avoided (Purtilo & Doherty,
2015). As in USA have a diverse population. The program should consider non malfiecience,
that is if someone is already suffering from the disease, what are the steps that should be
taken to prevent further deterioration of health. To implement the program, healthcare
professionals such as, pharmacists, nurses and physicians were required to provide the
effective strategies Along with that social workers are also required to create awareness
regarding the illness. The program follows the ethical practice guidelines such as collection
of consent form the healthcare professional and social workers.
Outcomes-
The anticipated outcome of the program is minimized rate of population affected by
chronic illness. Effectiveness of the outcome is evaluated by comparing the percentage of
percentage of the respondents participated in the program to other individual with respect to
their knowledge regarding self management for chronic illness. Whether, the number of cases
regarding the chronic illness is decreased or not after the program is also evaluated and if the
cases ate reduced then program will be considered as successful. In addition, after 6 months
the respondents are analyzed, that is whether there are any changes in the daily routine which
prevents the risk of chronic illness. The outcome is evaluated by calculating the percentage
of demographic population following the strategies explained in the program.

4Self-Management for Common Chronic Disease
There is no such programs initiated by Kentucky department of health which will
provides strategies to self-management for chronic illness and as result mote number of
people will participate in the program. This program will help in reducing the risk factor
associated and also aids in improving the life style of the demographic population of
Kentucky. This program will have a positive impact on the community health status. It will
also help in reducing the mortality rate of the older adults as they are the most common
victims of the chronic illness (Phillips et al., 2016). Along with the positive impact, there are
some negative impacts also such as, in the program the people from different cultural
background will participate which can cause cultural conflict, discrimination and bullying
(Stavenhagen, 2016).
The self-management program will have an effect on the communities of the
Kentucky as they will gain more knowledge about the prevention of the disease and will be
more aware by the consequences or negative effects implied by the illness.
The proposed program will have impact on the cultural competence standards.
According to the standards of cultural competence ethic and value of the community is
maintained, self-awareness and knowledge is provided (Betancourt et al., 2016). The program
will be modified according accordingly for the people from different cultural background to
ensure that each and every participant gets the equal benefits.

5Self-Management for Common Chronic Disease
References
Betancourt, J. R., Green, A. R., Carrillo, J. E., & Owusu Ananeh-Firempong, I. I. (2016).
Defining cultural competence: a practical framework for addressing racial/ethnic
disparities in health and health care. Public health reports.
CDC. (2019). Promoting Health during the Holidays 7 Tips to Stay Healthy. Retrieved from
https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/index.html
Douthit, N., Kiv, S., Dwolatzky, T., & Biswas, S. (2015). Exposing some important barriers
to health care access in the rural USA. Public health, 129(6), 611-620.
Grady, P. A., & Gough, L. L. (2014). Self-management: a comprehensive approach to
management of chronic conditions. American Journal of Public Health, 104(8), e25-
e31.
Ky.gov. (2019). Department for Public Health - Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family
Services. Retrieved from https://chfs.ky.gov/agencies/dph/Pages/default.aspx
Murdaugh, C. L., Parsons, M. A., & Pender, N. J. (2018). Health promotion in nursing
practice. Pearson Education Canada.
Phillips, L. A., Cohen, J., Burns, E., Abrams, J., & Renninger, S. (2016). Self-management of
chronic illness: The role of ‘habit’versus reflective factors in exercise and medication
adherence. Journal of behavioral medicine, 39(6), 1076-1091..
Purtilo, R. B., & Doherty, R. F. (2015). Ethical dimensions in the health professions. Elsevier
Health Sciences.
Stanton, R., Scott, D., & Happell, B. (2016). Low knowledge of physical health behaviours is
associated with poor diet and chronic illness in adults. Australian journal of primary
health, 22(3), 226-232.

6Self-Management for Common Chronic Disease
Stavenhagen, R. (2016). Ethnic conflicts and the Nation-State. Springer.