Self-Management Program for Older Adults With Multimorbidity

Patients with multimorbidity move between multiple care settings, and so they are at high risk of receiving fragmented care leading to increased risk for avoidable illness, death, and health care costs. Recent Canadian studies and reports identify significant gaps in the delivery of effective care to patients with multiple chronic conditions in community-based settings. The overall goal of the intervention is to promote successful management of chronic conditions, enhance quality of life, reduce the on-demand use of expensive health services and support primary caregivers (i.e. family or friends) who provide physical, emotional or financial care to an older adult with multimorbidity. This research program will leverage the tremendous potential to reduce the burden of multimorbidity by enhancing community-based prevention and chronic disease management. This pragmatic mixed-methods randomized controlled trial will evaluate the effectiveness of an interprofessional team-based self-management intervention on health-related quality of life (HRQOL), depression, anxiety, self-efficacy, and the costs of use of health services for older adults with multimorbidity receiving home care and their family caregivers. The results will inform: (1) the development of national standards for community-based care for patients with multimorbidity and (2) the development of a new and innovative community-based model for the management of multimorbidity that can be scaled up and spread across Canada.