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Frequently Asked Questions

How is Help Yourself different from other patient education classes?


Unlike disease specific classes, Help Yourself was designed to help people live full and active lives with chronic conditions.

Participants learn skills needed to help deal with:

  1. the medical self management of the disease;
  2. the life role changes;
  3. the emotions that are always part of living with a chronic illness.

Thus, emphasis is placed on helping people manage common problems and the most important outcome is that people become more confident to combine more active lives with self-management of their chronic illness (es).

The workshops are highly interactive, focusing on building skills, sharing experiences, and support.

Participants enjoy the sessions and find that the time passes quickly.

Who should take Help Yourself?

We recommend that nearly everyone with a chronic condition be referred to the workshop; let them decide for themselves if they would benefit from such an intervention.

Anyone who is at least 20 years old with one or more chronic condition is eligible

The class is beneficial for people even if they have been coping with their condition for many years.

Many people have more than one chronic condition. The program is especially helpful for these people, as it gives them the skills to coordinate all the activities needed to manage their health, as well as to help them maintain a full and active life.

Who developed Help Yourself?

Help Yourself is the Chronic Disease Self-Management Program developed by the Patient Education Research Center at the Stanford University School of Medicine (2)

Marshall University School of Medicine, Center for Rural Health, has a license from Stanford to develop partnerships to disseminate the Help Yourself program.

Marshall is responsible to maintain fidelity to the Chronic Disease Self Management Program and does so by thorough adherence to program standards and maintaining a training and reporting relationship with staff at Stanford.

How effective is Help Yourself?

A randomized study of 1000 people demonstrated significant changes in:

Health status -

  • Less fatigue
  • Less disability
  • Improved role function
  • 0.8 fewer days in the hospital

Self-Management-

  • Increased minutes of exercise
  • Increased use of cognitive pain and stress management techniques
  • Improved communication with their physicians
  • More confidence in their ability to manage their conditions

For more information about the effectiveness of the CDSMP visit the Stanford Webpage - Bibliography