Socio-Clinical factors associated with Parkinson's disease–related specific self-management behaviours

OBJECTIVE: To test associations between socio-clinical factors, self-management and patient activation among patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), and to explore the use of regression tree to find the cut-off levels of socio-clinical factors which associate with lower or higher self-management behaviours and patient's activation.

METHODS: A cross-sectional study of patients with PD ( n  = 62) who underwent assessment of their socio-clinical factors including age, gender, cognitive status, comorbidities, disease severity (motor and non-motor symptoms) and social support. The associations of these factors to specific aspects of self-management behaviours including utilization of rehabilitative treatments, physical activity and patient activation were tested.

RESULTS: Most patients did not utilize rehabilitative treatments. Non-motor symptoms and cognitive status were significantly associated with physical activity ( R 2  = 0.35, F (3, 58)  = 10.50, p  < 0.001). Non-motor symptoms were significantly associated with patient activation ( R 2  = 0.30, F (1, 30)  = 25.88, p  < 0.001). Patients with Mini-Mental State Exam score ≤24 performed less physical activity, relative to those with a higher score. Patients with ≤5 non-motor symptoms showed higher activation relative to those with >5.

CONCLUSION: In PD, disease-specific clinical characteristics overshadow other personal factors as determinants of self-management behaviours. The role of non-motor symptoms in reduced self-management behaviours and activation is highlighted.