Promoting Self-Care After Lung Transplantation

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Lung transplant recipients have more complications, higher mortality, and greater average healthcare charges than recipients of other organs. Strategies to maximize active recipient involvement in improving health outcomes have received little attention. This plan proposes a novel intervention using a hand held, interactive health technology to promote self-care agency and self-care behaviors in lung-transplant recipients, thus maximizing the contribution of recipients themselves in preventing and detecting post-transplant complications. The purposes of this project are to: 1) develop a prototype of the self-care intervention and evaluate its functionality (ergonomics, human-computer interaction factors, and usability), and 2) pilot test the self-care intervention in a one-group, longitudinal, open-trial in order to assess utilization/satisfaction with the intervention, self-care agency, self-care behaviors, and examine the relationships among them. The project will provide pilot data for a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of the self-care intervention in promoting recipients' self-care agency and self-care behaviors, thereby reducing post-transplantation morbidity, mortality, and health-resource utilization. The ultimate aim of my research program is to develop and test behavioral interventions to promote recipient involvement in reducing morbidity and mortality following lung transplantation in order to maximize the quality of long-term survival and reduce health care utilization. I have assembled a mentoring team and developed an intense training plan to gain expertise in: 1) the application of conceptual models to guide the development of behavioral and psychosocial interventions, 2) the design and conduct of clinical trials in transplant cohorts, and 3) using and evaluating interactive technologies for promotion of health. These skills will assist me to achieve my career goal of becoming an independent nurse scientist.