Europe’s aging population is leading to a growing number of people
affected by chronic disease, which will continue over the coming decades. Healthcare
systems are under pressure to deliver appropriate care, partly due to the burden
imposed on their limited financial and human resources by the growing number of
people with (multiple) chronic diseases. Therefore, there is a strong call for patient
self-management to meet these patients’ healthcare needs.
While many patients experience medication self-management as difficult, it poses additional
challenges for people with limited health literacy.
This thesis aims to explore the needs of patients with a chronic disease and limited
health literacy regarding medication self-management and how support for
medication self-management can be tailored to those needs.