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. 2023 Jul 8;23(1):1312.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-023-16194-6.

Tools for measuring individual self-care capability: a scoping review

Austen El-Osta  1 , Eva Riboli Sasco  2 , Evelina Barbanti  2 , Iman Webber  2 , Aos Alaa  2 , Manisha Karki  2 , Marie Line El Asmar  2 , Haitham Idriss  2 , Mashael Almadi  2 , Farah Massoud  2 , Ahmed Alboksmaty  2 , Azeem Majeed  2
Affiliations

Tools for measuring individual self-care capability: a scoping review

Austen El-Osta et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: Our ability to self-care can play a crucial role in the prevention, management and rehabilitation of diverse conditions, including chronic non-communicable diseases. Various tools have been developed to support the measurement of self-care capabilities of healthy individuals, those experiencing everyday self-limiting conditions, or one or more multiple long-term conditions. We sought to characterise the various non-mono-disease specific self-care measurement tools for adults as such a review was lacking.

Objective: The aim of the review was to identify and characterise the various non-mono-disease specific self-care measurement tools for adults. Secondary objectives were to characterise these tools in terms of their content, structure and psychometric properties.

Design: Scoping review with content assessment.

Methods: The search was conducted in Embase, PubMed, PsycINFO and CINAHL databases using a variety of MeSH terms and keywords covering 1 January 1950 to 30 November 2022. Inclusion criteria included tools assessing health literacy, capability and/or performance of general health self-care practices and targeting adults. We excluded tools targeting self-care in the context of disease management only or indicated to a specific medical setting or theme. We used the Seven Pillars of Self-Care framework to inform the qualitative content assessment of each tool.

Results: We screened 26,304 reports to identify 38 relevant tools which were described in 42 primary reference studies. Descriptive analysis highlighted a temporal shift in the overall emphasis from rehabilitation-focused to prevention-focused tools. The intended method of administration also transitioned from observe-and-interview style methods to the utilisation of self-reporting tools. Only five tools incorporated questions relevant to the seven pillars of self-care.

Conclusions: Various tools exist to measure individual self-care capability, but few consider assessing capability against all seven pillars of self-care. There is a need to develop a comprehensive, validated tool and easily accessible tool to measure individual self-care capability including the assessment of a wide range of self-care practices. Such a tool could be used to inform targeted health and social care interventions.

Keywords: Assessment; Instrument; Measurement; Proxy-measure; Scale; Self-care; Tool.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

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PRISMA flowchart
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