Supporting self-management

No cure for cardiovascular disease (CVD) has yet been found, which means that prevention is the mainstay of treatment. The recently published Cardiovascular Disease Outcomes Strategy (Department of Health, 2013) shows that prevention is now centre stage either through efforts to prevent the initial development of CVD or to slow down its progression. As nurses our priority is to foster collaborative partnerships with patients and their families, supporting them to ‘self-manage’ their medications and make healthy lifestyle changes. Self-management is defined as ‘the sum of activities that a patient undertakes to control the symptoms and progression of chronic disease' (Marshall et al, 2005). Patients with CVD have to manage a constellation of symptoms such as angina pain, intermittent claudication, shortness of breath and fatigue, combined with complex medication regimes. Having to make lifestyle changes in addition to managing symptoms and medication regimes can seem overwhelming