Goal oriented care in chronic disease management: A qualitative study evaluating patients' perception

This study was designed to evaluate the perceptions of patients in our country and to consult their opinions about goal-oriented care, which is one of the clinical methods developed for more effective management of increasing chronic diseases. Qualitative research was used to examine the patients' views on this model in depth. Patient interviews were conducted face to face with a semi-structured interview form. The interviews were deciphered and subjected to computer-aided descriptive analysis. After the analysis, the codes obtained from the patient interviews were collected under six main themes which are chronic disease perception, decision-making process and the roles of patients and physicians, identification and sharing of treatment goals, evaluation of treatment success, goal-oriented care perception, physician, patient and system based empowering and / or facilitating factors. When the patients' opinions about goal-oriented care were examined, although they tended to specify more medical goals, they also mentioned non-medical targets after informing. Although the majority of the patients expressed their opinions about the decisions to be taken by the doctors during the treatment process, the findings obtained when the patients' opinions were examined suggest that they want to be involved in the decision-making process, if the patients are guided by the doctor. Keywords: chronic disease management, clinical method, patient-centeredness, goal-oriented