Introduction: Self-management support (SMS) improves quality of life, mood, self-efficacy and physical function, and reduces health service utilization in persons with stroke.Today, rehabilitation increasingly occurs at home, but persons with stroke and their families often feel unprepared to manage this situation. SMS is important to succeed in transforming care and rehabilitation to home. Understanding how people perceive and experience self-management are thus crucial in developing SMS for persons with stroke. This study aimed to explore how persons with stroke understand and practice self-management in the post-acute phase.Method: Semi-structured with 18 persons who received rehabilitation at home. The data was analyzed using qualitative content analysis.Results: The participant expressed the importance of being independent and taking action to find their new normal way of living. They discovered difficulties performing daily activities after homecoming, a situation they were not prepared for. The persons displayed different game plans for self-management to handle their situation, but lacked support from health care.Conclusion: In the present study, participants expressed self-management as taking care of their own business and being as independent as possible. Despite health care attempts to increase self-care models, more advance advise on self-management was not revealed. This may indicate that health care does not have all the tools to operationalize self-management for persons with stroke to meet their individual needs. This study can contribute to knowledge on self-management as experienced by persons with stroke and thereby develop sustainable self-care models, which is crucial to meet patients’ needs in a new health care context.
Abstract booklet 2022