Maria Matarese

Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome · Medicine and Surgery

Aims This study aims to describe disease‐specific self‐care behaviours in patients with heart failure (HF), diabetes mellitus (DM) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in various combinations; to compare these self‐care behaviours within patient groups; and to evaluate differences across these groups. Design Cross‐sectional study. Met...

Background: In recent years, there has been an exponential increase in attention paid to the patient-reported outcome of self-care. Many investigators have used one of the families of self-care instruments freely available on the website www.self-care-measures.com. These self-care measures have been translated into many languages, which are also a...

Aims To describe and compare generic and disease‐specific self‐care measures in patients with multiple chronic conditions (MCCs) in the three dimensions of self‐care maintenance, monitoring, and management. Design Multicentre cross‐sectional study. Methods Patients aged 65 and over with MCCs. We used Self‐Care of Chronic Illness Inventory to meas...

Aim The aim of this study was to investigate self‐care behaviours of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), understand their complex interconnections and identify key behaviours influencing self‐care and self‐efficacy. Design An observational, cross‐sectional study design. Setting(s) The outpatient department of two tertiary...

Aim Describe and compare generic and disease‐specific caregiver contribution (CC) to self‐care behaviours in the dimensions of self‐care maintenance, self‐care monitoring and self‐care management in multiple chronic conditions (MCCs). Design Multicentre cross‐sectional study. Methods We enrolled caregivers of patients with MCC, from April 2017 to...

statement What is already known about this topic? The Middle‐Range Theory of Self‐care of Chronic Illness has been used to direct clinical nursing practice for coronary heart disease, heart failure, hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other chronic illnesses and has been shown to have good guiding significance for clinical nursi...

Aim To explore family caregivers' experiences of contributing to self‐care of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Design A qualitative description study. Methods Individual semi‐structured interviews were conducted face‐to face, by telephone or video calls in a purposive sample of 17 family caregivers of patients with COPD...

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Public grant(s) – National budget only. Main funding source(s): Centre of Excellence for Nursing Scholarship (CECRI), Rome, Italy. Background Older adults with HF and other chronic conditions often need the support of informal caregivers in performing self-care. Caregiver contribution (CC) to patie...

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Introduction Chronic conditions are the main causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Heart failure (HF) has a prevalence between 0.5% and 2% in the western population and the number is destined to increase from 25% in 2012 to 46% in 2030. Older adults affected by HF have difficulties to...

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Public grant(s) – National budget only. Main funding source(s): Centre of Excellence for Nursing Scholarship (CECRI), Rome, Italy. Background Older adults affected by chronic conditions (i.e., heart failure or any other chronic condition) need to perform self-care. It includes behaviors to maintain...

The use of motivational interviewing is relatively new in multiple chronic conditions (MCCs). A scoping review was conducted according to JBI methodology to identify, map and synthesize existing evidence on the use of motivational interviewing to support self-care behavior changes in older patients with MCCs and to support their informal caregivers...

Introduction We know that patient and caregiver sex influence patient self‐care and caregiver contribution to self‐care in multiple chronic conditions. However, the role of dyad sex combination (e.g., male patient and female caregiver, female patient and male caregiver, male patient and caregiver, and female patient and caregiver) in influencing pa...

Self-care of multiple chronic conditions (MCCs) and caregiver contribution to self-care have been theorized as dyadic. However, the different dyadic archetypes are still unknown. This cross-sectional study aimed to identify dyadic archetypes related to how in patient-caregiver dyads manage the patient's MCCs and to describe other ways in which the...

The study tested the construct validity and reliability of the Caregiver Contribution to Self-Care of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Inventory and the Caregiver Self-Efficacy in Contributing to Self-Care of COPD Scale. The two instruments were developed by modifying the Self-Care of COPD Inventory and Self-Care Self-Efficacy Scale in...

Objective: The objective of this review was to evaluate the experiences of health care personnel with promoting a sense of home for older adults living in residential care facilities. Introduction: Moving to a residential care facility represents a critical moment for older adults. It disrupts the continuity of their lives and distances them fro...

Aims and objectives: To assess the level of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)-related knowledge within patient and informal caregiver dyads, and to identify factors influencing the knowledge level considering the interdependence within the dyads. Background: Patients with COPD and their informal caregivers present poor disease knowled...

Self-care is essential to achieve positive clinical outcomes in patients with chronic diseases; however, self-care behaviors of people living with HIV (PLWH) have not been extensively studied due to the lack of validated measurements. We performed preliminary psychometric analyses of the structural validity and internal consistency of the Self-Care...

Background The recognition of a symptom is needed to initiate a decision to engage in a behavior to ameliorate the symptom. Yet, a surprising number of individuals fail to detect symptoms and delay in addressing early warnings of a health problem. Purpose The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that symptom recognition mediates the relati...

Objectives: Family is a major source of support for older chronically-ill patients and known to be associated with better self-care. Depression and self-care self-efficacy are associated with healthy behaviors and thus may serve as mechanisms by which family support influences self-care. We explored depression and self-care self-efficacy as mediato...

Aims: The aim was to explore nurses’ experiences of caring for and accompanying patients dying without the presence of family during the COVID-19 pandemic. Design: A qualitative descriptive design was used. Methods: A purposive sample of registered nurses, caring for dying patients in Italian health-care settings during the COVID-19 pandemic, were...

Objectives Self-care of chronic conditions involves both patients and their informal caregivers and therefore might be considered as a dyadic phenomenon. Nevertheless, empirical evidence supporting a dyadic construct is unavailable. This study aimed to explore the existence of a dyadic construct in self-care maintenance, monitoring, and management...

Background There is need for improvement in effective pressure ulcers preventive strategies. Objective To study whether a multi-layer silicone-adhesive polyurethane foam dressing shaped for the sacrum prevents PUs development in addition to standard PU preventive care for at-risk hospitalized patients. Design Open-label, parallel group, multi-cen...

Aims: Explore the self-care experiences of patients with multiple chronic conditions (MCCs) and caregivers' contributions to patient self-care during COVID-19 pandemic. Design: A descriptive qualitative design was used. The COREQ checklist was used for study reporting. Methods: Individual semi-structured interviews were used to collect data fr...

Aims To examine the distribution of dyadic care types in multiple chronic conditions, compare self-care and caregiver contributions to patients' self-care in each care type and identify the patient and caregiver characteristics associated with each care type. Design Secondary analysis of a multicentre, cross-sectional study. Methods Patient-careg...

Objectives Caregiver self-efficacy—a caregiver’s belief in his/her ability to contribute to patient self-care—is associated with better patient and caregiver outcomes in single chronic conditions. It is, however, unknown if caregiver self-efficacy improves patient and caregiver outcomes in multiple chronic conditions (MCCs) because there is no inst...

Aim To identify, analyze and synthesize qualitative studies on caregivers’ experiences of contributions to the self-care of patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Background COPD patients perform daily self-care behaviours to manage the disease. With aging and disease progression, patients need to rely on the contributions of...

Since the outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in 2020, many governments have been imposing confinement and physical distancing measures. No data exist on the effects of lockdowns on the health status of patients affected by chronic pathologies, specifically those with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Our study aims to establish variati...

Objective: The objective of this review is to evaluate the experiences of health care personnel in promoting a sense of home for older adults living in residential care facilities. Introduction: Moving to a residential care facility represents a critical moment for older adults as it disrupts their life and distances them from significant people...

Objective This multicentre study aimed to develop a measure of the perception of care dependence in patients diagnosed with cancer and to test its psychometric properties. Methods The questionnaire was developed based on findings emerged from a meta‐synthesis and from qualitative studies conducted in three hospitals in Italy. The draft questionnai...

Background and Objectives Ageism toward older adults, prevalent in contemporary societies, seems to be internalized during childhood and consolidated during adolescence. Although several instruments have been developed to measure adolescents’ ageism, they present a number of limitations. The study aimed at developing a new instrument, the Adolescen...

Aim The Self‐Care Self‐Efficacy Scale (SCSES) was newly developed as a self‐report measure for self‐care self‐efficacy for chronic illness. This study investigated its measurement equivalence (ME) in different cultural groups, including United States, China (Hong Kong), Italy, and Brazil. Design A multi‐national study for cross‐cultural validation...

PREMESSA: Il numero di persone affette da malattie croniche multiple, cioè in cui sono presenti due o più malattie croniche, è andato aumentando soprattutto nella popolazione più anziana rappresentando una sfida per i sistemi sanitari di tutto il mondo. I pazienti affetti da malattie croniche multiple devono seguire specifici comportamenti per mant...

PREMESSA. La pandemia da COVID-19, causata dal virus SARS-COV-2, ha avuto un impatto importante sulle abitudini di vita della popolazione a li- vello mondiale. In Italia, alla data del 15/06/2020, era registrata una letalità media del 14%. Oltre il 95% dei decessi era registrato in persone con più di 60 anni, con un picco di letalità del 32.9% nell...

Background Understanding students’ experiences with regard to older adults is important for educators in developing specific educational strategies to encourage future healthcare professionals to consider the geriatric field as a career choice. Objectives The study explored Italian university healthcare students’ experiences with older people and...

Introduction: Multiple Chronic Conditions (MCC) are highly prevalent in patients with cardiovascular diseases. Patients’ informal caregivers play an essential role to achieve both patient and caregiver health outcomes. Four Care Dyadic Types (DTs) of caregiver-patient relationships were previously described in heart failure depending on who is resp...

Aim: To develop the Self-Care in COVID-19 (SCOVID) scale and to test its psychometric characteristics in the general population. Methods: We tested SCOVID scale content validity with 19 experts. For factorial and construct validity, reliability, and measurement error, we administered the 20-item SCOVID scale to a sample of 461 Italians in May/Ju...

Purpose Patients with advanced cancer are likely to face increasing levels of care dependence. Adult patients who become care dependent on others can experience this condition as one of suffering and humiliation. The nurse-patient relationship plays a key role in the experience of dependence. Understanding patients’ and nurses’ perceptions of care...

Objectives To identify, summarize, and aggregate the quantitative and qualitative evidence on the use of mindfulness-based programs in people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), to describe the possible barriers and facilitators and derive recommendations for the implementation of mindfulness-based programs in people with COPD.Method...

Aim The purpose of the this study was to test the factorial structure, internal consistency reliability and concurrent validity of the Caregiver Contribution to Self‐Care Chronic Illness Inventory. Background Existing measures of caregiver contribution to self‐care are disease‐specific or behavior‐specific; no generic measures exist. Design A cro...

Rationale Patients with multiple chronic conditions (MCCs) and their informal caregivers experience poorer health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Perceived social support has been shown to influence HRQOL. Objectives. This study aimed at identifying the differences between patients’ and caregivers’ physical and mental HRQOL; and determining the as...

Background: Caregivers represent the core of patients' care in hospital structures, in the process of care and self-care after discharge. We aim to identify the factors that affect the strain of caring for orthopedic patients and how these factors are related to the quality of life of caregivers. We also want to evaluate the role of caregivers in...

Aims To investigate the relationship between depression and self‐care behaviors in older individuals with multimorbidity. Design Cross‐sectional study. Data were collected between April 2017‐June 2019. Methods Patients were enrolled from community and outpatient settings and included if they were ≥65 years, affected by heart failure, diabetes mel...

Background Multiple chronic conditions (MCC) are highly prevalent worldwide, especially among older populations. Patient self-care and care partner (or caregiver) contributions to self-care are recommended to reduce the impact of MCC and improve patients’ outcomes. Objectives To describe patient self-care and care partner contributions to self-car...

Objectives: The Care Dependency Scale is a theory-based, comprehensive tool widely used in low-intensity care settings to evaluate patients' dependency. This study aimed to test the psychometric properties of the Care Dependency Scale in intensive care units. Research methodology/design: A multicentre cross-sectional validation study was conduct...

Introduzione. Le Malattie Croniche Multiple (MCM) risultano altamente prevalenti nei pazienti con patologie cardiache. Gli individui affetti da MCM presentano più frequentemente sintomi di depressione rispetto alla popolazione generale. Il Self-care si è dimostrato in grado di migliorare gli outcome in un certo numero di malattie croniche, ma poco...

SCOPO DEL LAVORO. Il self-care è definito come un insieme di comportamenti che gli individui adottano per mantenere stabili le loro malattie (self-care maintenance), per monitorare segni e sintomi (self-care monitoring) e per rispondere a segni e sintomi di una esacerbazione della malattia (self-care management). È stato dimostrato che il self-care...

Introduzione. Le Malattie Croniche Multiple (MCM) risultano altamente prevalenti nei pazienti con patologie cardiache. Gli individui affetti da MCM presentano più frequentemente sintomi di depressione rispetto alla popolazione generale. Il Self-care si è dimostrato in grado di migliorare gli outcome in un certo numero di malattie croniche, ma poco...

Background: Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men worldwide and nowadays several treatments are available, each presenting risks and benefits. Therefore, deciding on the most appropriate treatment is particularly challenging for men at the time of the diagnosis. Aim: This review was aimed at identifying, analyzing, and synthesizing th...

Background: Worldwide, nursing students have reported a preference for working in intensive care, paediatrics, and operating theatres after graduation, disregarding psychiatry and geriatrics. Many factors can influence student choices. Educators need to know students' preferences and influencing factors in order to plan appropriate interventions t...

Background. Self-care refers to behaviors that individuals adopt to prevent or maintain the stability of an illness (self-care maintenance), to monitor signs and symptoms (self-care monitoring), and to respond to signs and symptoms of an illness exacerbation (self-care management). A generic measure of self-care, the Self-Care of Chronic Illness In...

Background Hospital readmission after discharge is a frequent, burdensome and costly event, particularly frequent in older people with multiple chronic conditions. Few literature reviews have analysed studies of continuity of care interventions to reduce readmissions of older inpatients discharged home over the short and long term. Objective To ev...

This study developed two instruments, the Self-Care in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Inventory (SC-COPDI) and the COPD-Self-Care Self-Efficacy Scale (SCES), and tested their psychometric properties on a convenience sample of 498 patients from Northern, Central, and Southern Italy. First, the domains and the items of the SC-SCOPDI wer...

Aims and objectives This study aimed at summarizing the evidence about patient‐related risk factors for difficult intravenous access (DIVA) in adults, and at identifying nurses’ beliefs and their consistency with evidence. Background Peripheral intravenous cannulation (PIVC) is a common procedure for nurses, but rates of failure at first attempt o...

The ageing of the population is one of the most significant events of the 21st century; it represents a success for society, but also a political, economic, and health challenge. One of the consequences of population ageing is the increasing demand for surgical treatments in older people. In fact, it is estimated that over half of the surgical inte...

Evaluate the psychometric properties of the Caregiver Contribution to Self-Care of Chronic Illness Inventory (CC-SCCII), a new instrument that measures CC in the dimensions of self-care maintenance (CC to maintain the CI stable), self-care monitoring (CC to monitor signs and symptoms of the CI) and self-care management (CC to respond to signs and s...

Analyse the influence of PSS on QOL in MCD patient and caregiver dyads. Specifically, we analysed the influence of patient and caregiver PSS on their own QOL (actor effect) and the influence of patient and caregiver PSS on their partner QOL (partner effect).

Background: Dependence is a common life experience and innate condition for human beings due to their bodily and relational essence, but in contemporary society, it has become a stressful condition. Care dependence is central to nursing, and patients with advanced cancer are often dependent on care. Understanding nurses' perceptions of care depend...

Purpose We aimed to assess the influence of anxiety and depression on the physical and mental quality of life (QoL) in patient with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and caregiver dyads, detect the simultaneous effect of anxiety and depression of each partner on the other’s QoL and determine the dyadic patterns. Methods A cross-sectiona...

Aims and objectives To describe which nursing activities are observed during the discharge of older patients with chronic diseases and to investigate the consistency between the nursing activities actually observed and those documented. Background The discharge from hospital of older patients with chronic diseases is a critical transition that can...

Purpose. This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric characteristics of the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) in patients with chronic diseases. Methods. Patients (n = 236) with chronic diseases completed the MSPSS and the 36-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) questionnaire. The MSPSS factorial structure was analysed u...

Introduction: Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) self-manage daily their disease and often caregivers offer their contribution to the symptoms management. How COPD patient-caregiver dyads collaborate in symptom management has not been studied yet. In heart failure, Buck and colleagues (2013) have proposed a model, which iden...

Aim To describe a research protocol for a study designed to examine self‐care in patient and caregiver dyads in coping with multiple chronic conditions, to evaluate the influence of dyad self‐care on 1) patient mortality, quality of life, hospital admissions and the unplanned access of care; and 2) the positive aspects of caregiving. The specific c...

Introduction: As recommended, COPD patient-centred self-management interventions firstly have to identify patients needs to effectively support the patients to positively adapt their health behaviours and develop skills to manage their disease better. To our knowledge, no tools to measure the needs of people with COPD are present in the literature....

Introduction: The literature has identified several factors that can influence COPD self-care. Despite this, the influence of these factors and how they contribute to COPD self-care is still unclear. Aim: To investigate how personal, physical, psychological and social factors influence COPD self-care. Methods: A convergent parallel mixed methods...

Introduction: People with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and their caregivers present symptoms of anxiety and depression that impact negatively on their quality of life. There are no studies using the dyad perspective in analyzing such effects on COPD dyads. Aims: To assess the effects of anxiety and depression on mental and physical...

The assessment of self‐care among older adults is important as it permits the tailoring of educational interventions directed to prevent health deterioration and contrast the effects of ageing. The Self‐care Ability Scale for the Elderly (SASE) was developed to assess the perceived self‐care ability in older adults. Its psychometric properties were...

Introduzione: A causa della natura cronico-progressiva della BPCO, le persone devono affrontare oltre a problemi fisici, quali dispnea, tosse e fatigue, anche disturbi emozionali come ansia, depressione, frustrazione e stress. I disturbi emozionali influenzano negativamente l'andamento della malaRa e sono correlate ad un peggioramento della qualità...

Purpose: This systematic review identified, synthesized, and integrated concept analyses on self-care and related concepts. Design: The guidelines for systematic literature reviews of the Joanna Briggs Institute were followed. Methods: The Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), PubMed, PsycINFO, and EMBASE databases...

Context: Patients with advanced illnesses show the highest prevalence for pressure ulcers. In the palliative care setting the ultimate goal is injury healing, but equally important is wound maintenance, wound palliation (wound-related pain and symptom management), and primary and secondary wound prevention. Objectives: To describe the course of...

The complexity of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) can negatively impact the lives of people with the condition and compromise their capacity to take care of their needs. Unmet needs can then lead to significant morbidity, unpleasant emotional experiences and a poor quality of life; thus this systematic review aimed to identify, evaluat...

Background: Knowledge of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is important for the disease self-management. Aim: This study aimed to assess the level of knowledge in Italian patients with COPD and their caregivers and to determine factors influencing their knowledge. Methods: We used a descriptive-correlational design. Knowledge was as...

Objective: To identify theories applied in interventions promoting healthy nutrition among community-dwelling older adults and determine the efficacy of theories in changing knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. Material and methods: The PubMed, PsycINFO, Embase, and ERIC databases were searched for English articles from January 1990 to December...

Background Self-care in people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) can improve health-related quality of life, reduce hospital admissions and decrease dyspnoea. Objective This review aimed to systematically identify, evaluate and synthesise the qualitative literature on the self-care behaviours and strategies used by people with COPD....

Aims and objectives: To explore the lived experiences of patients with hematological malignancies who had been in protective isolation during their hospital stay for autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Background: Although protective isolation aims to benefit patients' health by preventing infection, it could also imply h...

Aims: The aims of this study were as follows: to identify instruments developed to assess self-care in healthy adults; to determine the theory on which they were based; their validity and reliability properties and to synthesize the evidence on their measurement properties. Background: Many instruments have been developed to assess self-care in...

Background: Self-care is considered important in the management of COPD as it enables people to deal with symptoms and treatment regimes, and to adapt to illness-related lifestyle modifications. Several self-reported instruments have been developed and used to assess self-care and related concepts in people with COPD. However, clinicians and resear...

Background: Current evidence shows that self-care interventions improve health-related quality of life, reduce hospital admissions, and decrease dyspnea in individuals with COPD. However little is known about what are the activities that people with COPD perform and how they live their disease experiences. Aim: To explore self-care experiences of p...

Background: Self-care is considered important in the management of COPD as it enables people to deal with symptoms and treatment regimes, and to adapt to illness-related lifestyle modifications. Several self-reported instruments have been developed and used to assess self-care and related concepts in people with COPD. However, clinicians and resear...

Background: Current evidence shows that self-care interventions improve health-related quality of life, reduce hospital admissions, and decrease dyspnea in individuals with COPD. However little is known about what are the activities that people with COPD perform and how they live their disease experiences. Aim: To explore self-care experiences of...