Health facilities traditionally have been far better organized to care for the patient with an acute, curable short-term condition than for the one confronting a long-term incurable condition. But as giant medical advances have made possible new life-extending techniques, a greater share of the health needs of the population concern chronic illnesses and conditions. Helping patients adapt to permanent health conditions and at the same time maximize their potential to live full lives may be seen as perhaps the major challenge facing the health care professions today. In recent decades, a new voluntary resource has developed to meet the need of those with enduring health problems--the mutual support or self-help group, made up of members who have a common health problem and who seek to help others facing the same problem. The focus of this study is the impact of such groups in the rehabilitation of patients who have experienced dramatic surgical intervetion--breast surgery, an ostomy or a laryngectomy. The three self-help groups concerned with these individuals are Reach to Recovery, the United Ostomy Association and the International Association of Laryngectomees. The implications of the research, however, extend to any patient confronting a chronic conditions. The objective of the research is to assess the impact of mutual support groups on patients' subjective and objective re-adaptation to living. Subjective recovery concerns the extent of social-psychological well-being and objective recovery is the extent to which patients resume customary social roles. Using a quasi-experimental research design, data will be collected six months after surgery from 650 individuals who have had contact with a self-help group and 650 who have not. In preparation for this effort, informant interviewing has been conducted with selected physicians, nurses, social workers and leaders of the self-help groups who work with such patients.
NIH ExPorter
NIH ExPorter