The expert patients programme online, a 1-year study of an Internet-based self-management programme for people with long-term conditions

TLDR

The study evaluates the effectiveness of an online self‑management programme for England residents with long‑term conditions. A prospective longitudinal design collected baseline, 6‑month, and 12‑month online data from 568 participants, using an asynchronous 6‑week programme that assessed seven health‑status measures, four health‑behaviour indicators, five utilisation metrics, self‑efficacy, and satisfaction. Significant improvements were observed at 6 months for most variables, and at 12 months the programme still reduced disability, hospitalisations, and emergency visits while increasing self‑efficacy and satisfaction, demonstrating that the peer‑led online intervention effectively improves health outcomes and reduces utilisation over one year.

Abstract

Evaluate the effectiveness of an online self-management programme (EPP Online) for England residents with long-term conditions.A prospective longitudinal study. Data were collected online at baseline, 6 and 12 months. The intervention was an asynchronous 6-week chronic-disease self-management programme offered online. We measured seven health status measures (health distress, self-rated health, illness intrusiveness, disability, fatigue, pain and shortness of breath), four behaviours (aerobic exercise, stretching exercise, stress management and communications with physician), and five utilization measures (GP visits, pharmacy visits, PT/OT visits, emergency visits and hospitalizations). We also measured self-efficacy and satisfaction with the health care system.A total of 568 completed baseline data: 546 (81%) completed 6 months and 443 (78%) completed 1 year. Significant improvements (p < 0.01) were found at 6 months for all variables except self-rated health, disability, stretching, hospitalizations and nights in hospital. At 12 months only decrease in disability, nights in hospital and hospitalizations were not significant with reduction in visits to emergency departments being marginally significant (p = 0.012). Both self-efficacy and satisfaction with the health care system improved significantly.The peer-led online programme conditions appears to decrease symptoms, improve health behaviours, self-efficacy and satisfaction with the health care system and reducing health care utilization up to 1 year.