Assessing disease self-management in multi-ethnic patients with chronic conditions and evaluating psychometric properties of the Partners in Health scale

The increasing prevalence of chronic diseases globally has resulted in increased healthcare utilization. Patients’ self-management of chronic diseases is important for efficient healthcare and improving patient health outcomes. This study aims to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Partners in Health (PIH) scale in a representative, multi-ethnic sample of patients with chronic diseases in Singapore and examine factors that can contribute to chronic disease self-management. A cross-sectional household survey included the PIH scale administered to 502 patients aged 40 and above who reported having at least one chronic condition. Bayesian Confirmatory Factor Analysis was applied to evaluate the factor structure and gender measurement invariance of PIH. The results suggested that a four-factor structure fit the Singaporean sample and had approximate measurement equivalence between males and females for most of the PIH items. The PIH scale and subscales also demonstrated criterion validity by having expected correlations with conceptually relevant constructs. Finally, sociodemographic characteristics and satisfaction with healthcare are significantly related to self-management based on the PIH scale. Satisfaction with healthcare also attenuated the reduction of self-management in patients from minority ethnic groups or those with lower education. This suggested that those groups can benefit from high satisfaction towards care providers in enhancing their disease management. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that PIH can be a promising tool for assessing patient self-management in the Singaporean population.