In recent years, partly due to the increase in life expectancy and improvements in health care and pharmacotherapy, there has been an exponential increase in chronic illnesses (WHO, 2022). A chronic illness disrupts physical and psychological well-being, as well as individual, family, and societal roles and responsibilities. Since chronic health conditions, by definition, cannot be cured and are experienced over an extensive period of time, self-management represents a lifetime task for most individuals dealing with chronic health conditions, because patient with a single or multiple chronic health conditions needs to change one's lifestyle, taking medication, and taking preventive behaviors. In particular, recent reports have highlighted the increase in cardiovascular diseases and high blood pressure, cancer, respiratory diseases, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, and mental disorders.
Managing an illness is rarely an individual experience because partners, spouses, family members, and friends often assume the role of informal caregivers. Caregivers have to face multiple potentially burdensome responsibilities such as taking action in the face of an emergency, mediating the relationship between the doctor and the patient, participating in decision-making regarding treatments, and providing emotional and functional support to the patient.
Supporting caregiving has important direct and indirect effects on the patient’s health. On the other hand, providing it is a difficult task and excessive caregiver burden is known to impair the quality of the support provided to the patient. The COVID-19 pandemic, due to the global economic recession and the stress to the healthcare systems it caused, exacerbated these challenges since it impaired the continuity of care and reduced both the societal and familiar financial resources needed for the care of the patient.
The theoretical and empirical reflection on the strategies and mechanisms the patient and the caregiver implement to manage a chronic illness suggests that this relationship should be conceptualized not as the sum of the individual’s psychic processes, but as the interdependence between one partner’s activities or qualities and the other partner’s outcomes. Interdependence involves a balance of self and partner within the relationship, recognizing that both are working to meet each other's physical and emotional needs.
More recently, new research methodologies and data analytic models have been developed for analyzing interdependent data. The new and appropriate research methods include but are not limited to actor-partner interdependence models, common fate models, multi-level analysis, growth curve modeling, use of phantom data, mixed methods, structural equation modeling, the analysis of the explanatory mechanism of the relations between processes and outcomes (e.g., moderators and mediators).
This Research Topic welcomes scholars and researchers to submit contributions addressing individual/dyadic processes that characterize the experience of caregivers and care-recipients, as well as their effects on the management of chronic illness. Contributions with empirical data using methodological approaches suited to the study of relational and interdependent phenomena, such as using dyadic designs, are particularly welcome.
Studies of interest for this Research Topic include (but are not limited to) the following:
• studies investigating the role of patients and caregivers in the management of chronic illnesses;
• studies assessing the association between individual, relational and social processes with caregiver burden;
• studies assessing the relationship between individual and dyadic processes and intra- as well as interindividual outcomes concerning chronic disease management;
• studies examining underlying mechanisms (mediators or moderators) between individual/dyadic processes and their outcomes;
• studies adopted qualitative methods of data collection and analysis.
In recent years, partly due to the increase in life expectancy and improvements in health care and pharmacotherapy, there has been an exponential increase in chronic illnesses (WHO, 2022). A chronic illness disrupts physical and psychological well-being, as well as individual, family, and societal roles and responsibilities. Since chronic health conditions, by definition, cannot be cured and are experienced over an extensive period of time, self-management represents a lifetime task for most individuals dealing with chronic health conditions, because patient with a single or multiple chronic health conditions needs to change one's lifestyle, taking medication, and taking preventive behaviors. In particular, recent reports have highlighted the increase in cardiovascular diseases and high blood pressure, cancer, respiratory diseases, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, and mental disorders.
Managing an illness is rarely an individual experience because partners, spouses, family members, and friends often assume the role of informal caregivers. Caregivers have to face multiple potentially burdensome responsibilities such as taking action in the face of an emergency, mediating the relationship between the doctor and the patient, participating in decision-making regarding treatments, and providing emotional and functional support to the patient.
Supporting caregiving has important direct and indirect effects on the patient’s health. On the other hand, providing it is a difficult task and excessive caregiver burden is known to impair the quality of the support provided to the patient. The COVID-19 pandemic, due to the global economic recession and the stress to the healthcare systems it caused, exacerbated these challenges since it impaired the continuity of care and reduced both the societal and familiar financial resources needed for the care of the patient.
The theoretical and empirical reflection on the strategies and mechanisms the patient and the caregiver implement to manage a chronic illness suggests that this relationship should be conceptualized not as the sum of the individual’s psychic processes, but as the interdependence between one partner’s activities or qualities and the other partner’s outcomes. Interdependence involves a balance of self and partner within the relationship, recognizing that both are working to meet each other's physical and emotional needs.
More recently, new research methodologies and data analytic models have been developed for analyzing interdependent data. The new and appropriate research methods include but are not limited to actor-partner interdependence models, common fate models, multi-level analysis, growth curve modeling, use of phantom data, mixed methods, structural equation modeling, the analysis of the explanatory mechanism of the relations between processes and outcomes (e.g., moderators and mediators).
This Research Topic welcomes scholars and researchers to submit contributions addressing individual/dyadic processes that characterize the experience of caregivers and care-recipients, as well as their effects on the management of chronic illness. Contributions with empirical data using methodological approaches suited to the study of relational and interdependent phenomena, such as using dyadic designs, are particularly welcome.
Studies of interest for this Research Topic include (but are not limited to) the following:
• studies investigating the role of patients and caregivers in the management of chronic illnesses;
• studies assessing the association between individual, relational and social processes with caregiver burden;
• studies assessing the relationship between individual and dyadic processes and intra- as well as interindividual outcomes concerning chronic disease management;
• studies examining underlying mechanisms (mediators or moderators) between individual/dyadic processes and their outcomes;
• studies adopted qualitative methods of data collection and analysis.
