title: Encouraging patients to self-care - the preliminary development and validation of the VeLUSET©, a self-efficacy tool for venous leg ulcer patients, aged 60 years and over.
abstract: Venous leg ulceration has a high recurrence rate. Patients with healed or frequently recurring venous ulceration are required to perform self-care behaviours to prevent recurrence or promote healing, but evidence suggests that many find these difficult to perform. Bandura's self-efficacy theory is a widely used and robust behaviour change model and underpins many interventions designed to promote self-care in a variety of chronic conditions. By identifying areas where patients may experience difficulty in performing self-care, interventions can be developed to strengthen their self-efficacy beliefs in performing these activities successfully. There are currently a variety of self-efficacy scales available to measure self-efficacy in a variety of conditions; but not a disease-specific scale for use with venous ulcer patients. The aim of this study, therefore, was to develop and validate a disease-specific, patient-focused self-efficacy scale for patients with healed venous leg ulceration. This scale will need further validation studies; however, it is ready for use in clinical practice and will enable practitioners to identify those patients who may need additional support in performing self-care activities to prevent recurrence.
authors.affiliation: Independent Tissue Viability Consultant Doctoral Fellow, East of England SHA.
authors.forename: Annemarie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.forename: Sally
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kendall
authors.forename: Madeleine
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Flanagan
authors.forename: Michaela
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cottee
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D017144:Focus Groups; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D016730:Program Development; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012008:Recurrence; D012648:Self Care / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards*; D020377:Self Efficacy; D014647:Varicose Ulcer / Q000628:therapy*
keywords: Instrument development; Likert scales; Prevention; Recurrence; Self-care; Self-efficacy; Venous leg ulcers