None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
Self-management interventions assist people with chronic conditions to manage their symptoms and retain a higher level of quality of life and activity participation. New ways to deliver self-management interventions are needed to overcome existing barriers, particularly for those who have difficulty accessing services due to geographical location, ethnicity, physical problems, limited literacy level, or who lack the confidence to be partners in their own care. Also, despite the fact that a growing population are living with neurological conditions in community, there are few studies focusing on self-management for neurological conditions. Online interventions have been shown to be successful in transferring information to individuals with chronic conditions; therefore online self-management interventions may be a reasonable way to bridge the gap between needs of individuals with chronic conditions and traditional health services. However, the role of the Internet in self-management of chronic conditions has received little attention in the literature. Based on Australian information, there is strong evidence that individuals have the ability to access the Internet. This study, then, will employ a Randomized Clinical Trial to evaluate the effectiveness of an online fatigue self-management group intervention and compare it with an online support group and a control group in a sample of adults with chronic neurological conditions.
Interventions
Information Only Group: To exclude the possibility that "attention" accounts for improvement, this group of participants will receive information once per week via the Internet. They will be able to read the information about how to manage fatigue. The education information will be posted once per week. The length of this group will be 7 weeks.
Fatigue Management online intervention group: This 7-week intervention will follow the published protocol outlined in Managing fatigue (Packer et al., 1
Information Only Group: To exclude the possibility that "attention" accounts for improvement, this group of participants will receive information once per week via the Internet. They will be able to read the information about how to manage fatigue. The education information will be posted once per week. The length of this group will be 7 weeks. Fatigue Management online intervention group: This 7-week intervention will follow the published protocol outlined in Managing fatigue (Packer et al., 1995). Each session is highly structured and includes an education session, practice activities, discussions and homework assignment. All teaching content, worksheets, and homework assignments are provided online. Based on self-efficacy theory (Bandura, 1997) each session incorporates strategies known to increase confidence in the ability to engage in specific behaviours. Also participants can share information, express their ideas or feelings and offer advice or support to one another. The intervention will be run by facilitators who have been trained.
Sponsors
Curtin University
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Educational / counselling / training
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
20 Years to -2147483648 No limit
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
Confirmed diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, Parkinson's disease, chronic fatigue syndrome or post-polio syndrome (letter from their physicians);Access to the internet three times per week for at least one hour;A Fatigue Severity Scale score of 4 or higher (i.e. moderate-to-high fatigue impact).
Exclusion criteria
Previous participation in 'Fatigue Management' face-to-face self-management group intervention; orPoor cognitive ability (Greater than 9 on the Memory Orientation Concentration Test
Outcome results
None listed