Chronic Illness Management: Interview Report, Analysis, and Reflection

This report presents an interview with an individual suffering from type 2 diabetes, a prevalent chronic illness. The interview explores the patient's experiences over two years, including daily challenges like medication management, healthcare costs, and maintaining motivation. The interviewee highlights the crucial role of family support in daily care, medication, and symptom monitoring. The report details the involvement of a multidisciplinary healthcare team, including physicians, nurses, and pharmacists, in providing population management, protocol-based medication regulation, and self-management support. The interviewee suggests improvements to healthcare services, such as more effective consultations and sustained follow-up. The summary concludes by emphasizing the impact of chronic illness on patients and highlighting potential solutions, such as diabetes health and wellness institutes, offering comprehensive services. The report also reflects on the importance of professional nursing interventions in ambulatory care to enhance patient satisfaction and outcomes.

Running head: CHRONIC ILLNESS MANAGEMENT
CHRONIC ILLNESS MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1CHRONIC ILLNESS MANAGEMENT
Interview
The following interview was conducted taking into consideration the individuals who are
suffering from some kind of chronic disease. This particular interview deals with individuals
who are suffering from type 2 diabetes which is a leading chronic disease that is prevalent in
most of the countries around the world. For conduction of interviews of such nature an
important step is to acquire the consent of the individuals is supposed to be interviewed. The
first step that needs to be taken in such scenarios requires that the interviewer provides the
interviewee with a consent cover letter that includes the mention of the nature of the
interview as well as the purpose of the interview that will be conducted. It also mentions that
the interviewee will not be pressurised at any circumstances to give the interview and that
participation is voluntary. The cover letter also includes that if the interviewee finds some
questions are of personal nature he or she may omit to answer such questions. After going
through the letter the interviewee is supposed to provide a consent to the interviewer in order
to move forward with the proceedings of the interview. The consent can be in form of verbal
consent or written consent in form of letter or an electronic mail.
Questions
1. The interviewee informed that it has been almost two years since the disorder has
been first detected, although the onset of symptoms have started a few months prior to
the detection of the chronic disease.
2. The interviewee admitted that there had been different difficulties which has to be
faced on a daily basis as a result of suffering from a chronic disorder. The major
barriers that are encountered by the individual generally includes management of the
medications and consuming them properly on a daily basis. The problem of healthcare

2CHRONIC ILLNESS MANAGEMENT
cost is another problem accompanied by keeping up self-motivation in situations of
chronic conditions. For a person suffering from a chronic disorder it is mandatory to
consume multiple medications that are prescribes by the doctors. A lot of care has to
be taken while administration of these medicines since a dangerous drug combination
may result in fatality. It is often seen that living with chronic disease takes a toll on
the economic conditions of the individuals. Medications especially for diabetes are
quite expensive mainly due to the fact that there is no availability of generic
medicines. Apart from these problems, serious problems arise in cases of chronic
disorders since it imparts complexity to the lifestyle of the individuals which involves
lots of treatment and follow-up and medication which might exhaust the person (Zwar
et al., 2017).
3. The interviewee stated that major support is received from the members of the family
which is required for this chronic disease management. A prime aspect was the
provision of patient self-management that is received for the family in a daily setting.
This happened since the friends and family members are involved in the daily eating,
physical activity and even stress management is involved in case of social activities
and relationships. Family members also played a role in terms of medical care since
the members of the family decide on the foods that are needed to be consumed and are
involved in the medicine taking of the patients along with self-testing. They look out
for symptoms which involves hypoglycemia, shortness of breath, and occurrences of
fatigue. The individual also reported that the family members were better qualified to
be effective supporters since there was frequent contact with the family members and
also since they shared the same cultural background and system of values.
Additionally the relationships with the family and the patterns of communication is

3CHRONIC ILLNESS MANAGEMENT
developed prior to the onset of the disorder therefore they were long lasting (Årestedt,
Persson & Benzein, 2014).
4. The interviewee informed that the health care team that was involved for provision of
care to the individual was more of a multidisciplinary team. The team mainly included
nurses, physicians and pharmacists who were skilled in chronic disease management.
The steps that the team took in order to provide effective chromic disease
management involved population management, protocol based regulation of
medication along with self-management support and a follow up which is of intensive
nature. Apart of medical interventions, the team also takes part in consultative and
educational roles which are outside the regular norms of the treatment procedures,
which result in better outcomes (Edward, 2013).
5. Apart from the existing roles that the multidisciplinary health teams, betterment of the
care services can be attained by implementing more effective consultations. Often the
brief consultation which a chronically ill patients undergoes can be limited since they
might have multiple needs. Randomised trials can be carried out for the patients
especially in the older patients who are no satisfied with their treatment procedures,
and are more up to date in the terms of preventive care. They might be used to health
services that are less often than comparison patients. Group consultations enable the
provision of a significantly efficient means for the complementary functions of team
care. Another implementation can be done in terms of sustained follow up, which
evidently ensures the appropriate detection of negative effects that may lead to
compliance problems. Additional problems might be failure to respond to treatment,
and recrudescence of the symptoms. Sustained follow up might involve opportunities

4CHRONIC ILLNESS MANAGEMENT
that are required for problem solving and are able to demonstrate the healthcare
team’s concern (Stellefson, Dipnarine & Stopka, 2013).
Summary
 In order to summarise the interview it can be stated that the individuals suffering from
chronic disorder, to be specific type 2 diabetes suffer from various types of hindrances
in their day to life. However with the proper support from their family and the
multidisciplinary health care teams, living with the disease has become somewhat
easier. The patient D.B. had mentioned that one of the major problems that arises
while dealing with chronic diseases is the expensive nature of the living with the
disease. Such problems can be overcome in the future with the implementation of
certain Diabetes Health and Wellness Institutes which will offer services like
 An on-site physician and nurse practitioner on a full time basis
 Visiting medical specialists
 Referral coordinator for specialty and ancillary care
 Diabetes educators who will be certified.
 Presence of an exercise physiologist
 Presence of community health educators
 Also some community diabetes ambassadors
 Other services might include provision of diabetes medications at affordable costs,
conduction of health and wellness programs, provision of nutrition and healthy
cooking classes. Additional services might include certain exercise programs which

5CHRONIC ILLNESS MANAGEMENT
will include running and walking clinics and weight training, some social services,
Parks and Recreation programs and finally a van service/transportation assistance
(Noël et al., 2013).
Provision of care to the individuals suffering from chronic illness is one of the greatest
challenges of healthcare that the world is facing. In order to address such situations
professional nursing is an important component of the health care system. As the interviewee
has rightly stated the importance of the multidisciplinary team is huge in terms of care
provision to these individuals and the professional nurses are part of these teams. In order to
promote better care, as a nurse certain interventions are needed to be followed like playing a
role in outpatient care and in ambulatory care, inspite of the fact that the nurses are confined
to the roles of telephone triage, patient education, and technical procedures like the infusions
and medication administration. With the increasing number of patients who require higher
levels of care outside the hospital, there is a growing need to define and quantify ambulatory
roles of the professional nurses. There are several growing evidences that ambulatory care of
the professional nurses helps to provide an impact on the satisfaction of the patient, helps in
decreasing the negative outcomes. Along with these there is an improvement in the quality of
the patient outcomes along with reductions in emergency room/hospital admissions that
occurred through specific interventions (Edward, 2013).

6CHRONIC ILLNESS MANAGEMENT
References
Årestedt, L., Persson, C., & Benzein, E. (2014). Living as a family in the midst of chronic
illness. Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences, 28(1), 29-37.
Edward, K. L. (2013). Chronic illness and wellbeing: using nursing practice to foster
resilience as resistance. British Journal of Nursing, 22(13), 741-746.
Noël, P. H., Lanham, H. J., Palmer, R. F., Leykum, L. K., & Parchman, M. L. (2013). The
importance of relational coordination and reciprocal learning for chronic illness care
within primary care teams. Health care management review, 38(1), 20.
Stellefson, M., Dipnarine, K., & Stopka, C. (2013). Peer reviewed: The chronic care model
and diabetes management in US primary care settings: A systematic
review. Preventing chronic disease, 10.
Zwar, N., Harris, M., Griffiths, R., Roland, M., Dennis, S., Powell Davies, G., & Hasan, I.
(2017). A systematic review of chronic disease management.