Message Tailoring: An Essential Component for Disease Management

Disease management is an approach to patient care that includes health promotion and disease prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation, as well as long term care. Research indicates that providing health promotion, disease prevention and disease self-management information that is individually tailored to a patient's unique needs, interests and comprehension skills can have a significant impact on changes in the patient's health-related behaviours. This article provides an overview of disease management and tailored communication, and discusses potential uses for tailored communication to enhance the effectiveness of disease management curricula.