How important are working relationships for stroke self-management? A qualitative study with healthcare professionals in community stroke teams.
Lauren Lucas, Sarah Peters, Sarah Cotterill and 1 others
PMID 40686244WHAT IT FOUND
Clinicians said trust, clear expectations, shared goals and family networks helped working relationships and self-management, but they also often led goal setting and confused self-management with ongoing rehab.
Key findings
01Clinicians said trust and clear expectations were central to building working relationships.
02Professionals sometimes set self-management goals from their own clinical agenda rather than with patients, and participants said this often resulted in non-adherence.
03Participants were confused about what self-management meant, and no formal self-management programmes were described.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only healthcare professionals were interviewed, so this is one half of the alliance and does not show how stroke survivors experienced it. Nineteen people from four teams, including only two speech and language therapists, so themes may not apply to other services. The interviewer was a physiotherapist in community stroke, and participants found it hard to describe challenging relationships, so answers may have been shaped by insider status and power. Transcripts were not returned to participants, so they could not correct or add to what they said. The study reports experiences and themes, not measured effects, so it cannot show whether any approach improves self-management.
Declared interests
Stroke Association funded the research through a postgraduate fellowship. The funder had no role in study design, execution, analysis or results interpretation. The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that therapeutic alliance improves stroke self-management. It reports professionals' views and themes from interviews, not measured outcomes, so it cannot show that any relationship strategy caused better self-management.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →