Persons with disabilities (PwD) commonly experience fatigue, which adversely impacts their everyday lives. Information to manage and improve fatigue can be complicated and overwhelming. Little has been done to link mobile health (mHealth) approaches with patient activation and self-management to effectively address fatigue for PwD. The purpose of this study is to develop and pilot-test a fatigue self-management short message service (SMS) text intervention using mobile phones to target patient activation levels in PwD. The proposed study will: (1) develop content for a fatigue self-management intervention using SMS tailored to patient activation levels in persons with multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury, and stroke. An advisory board made up of one physical medicine and rehabilitation physician and six PwD will provide input on the content and format for the developed content. (2) test the feasibility and acceptability of SMS to improve patient activation for fatigue self-management in PwD. The long-term goal is to improve the health of PwD by increasing their skills, confidence, and knowledge to manage fatigue and other chronic symptoms that affect their daily life.
Persons with disabilities (PwD) commonly experience fatigue, which often negatively impacts their everyday lives. Management of this symptom can be challenging. Satisfaction with current interventions to manage fatigue is low among PwD and there is a desire for more personalized approaches. The purpose of this study is to develop and test a fatigue self-management intervention using mobile phones that is personalized to each person's needs.