What is Self-Management Support

Self-care emerged from the concept of health promotion in the 1970s while from 2000 onwards the term self-management gained popularity, with a greater focus on long-term conditions and the trend towards more holistic models of care. Although self-management and self-care are often used interchangeably, a distinction between the two concepts can be made. Both can be considered in terms of a continuum, with self-care at one end as “normal activity” and self-management an extension of this. Self-management support is the assistance given to patients in order to encourage daily decisions that improve health-related behaviors and clinical outcomes. The chapter envisions these concepts on a continuum with one pole representing mobile health and the other self-care. It concludes that self-management support is the nexus of mobile health and self-care.