Illness perception and self-management in patients with lung cancer: the mediating role of patient activation

ABSTRACT

Objective:

To explore the relationship among illness perception, patient activation and self-management in patients with lung cancer, and to investigate the mediating effect of patient activation between illness perception and self-management.

A total of 270 inpatients with lung cancer were selected by convenience sampling method.They were investigated by self-made social demographic questionnaire, brief illness perception questionnaire(BIPQ), patient activation measure(PAM13)and cancer patient self-management scale.SPSS 26.0 software was used for data analysis.T-test, analysis of variance, Pearson correlation analysis and mediating effect test were used for statistical analysis.

A total of 255 questionnaires were collected effectively.The total score of illness perception, patient activation and self-management in patients with lung cancer were (41.91±7.94), (62.31±16.39)and (142.20±20.59) .The total score of illness perception of lung cancer patients was significantly negatively correlated with the total score of patient activation and patient self-management( r=-0.652, P<0.01; r=-0.762, P<0.01), and the total score of patient activation was significantly positively correlated with the total score of self-management in patients with lung cancer( r=0.746, P<0.01). Patient activation had a partial mediating effect between illness perception and self-management in patients with lung cancer, and the mediating effect accounted for 37.10% of the total effect.

Patient activation plays a partial mediating role between illness perception and self-management in lung cancer patients, and it is an important protective factor for patients to actively participate in self-management of disease.On the basis of assessing the illness perception and patient activation of lung cancer patients, medical staff can timely correct the negative illness perception and help them establish and maintain a high positivity level to improve their self-management.