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Research project In order to manage to live with type 2 diabetes patient have to balance between controlling and being controlled by their illness. Patients do not change lifestyle because they achieve information about the advantage with the change. Patients need time to negotiate about what this lifestyle changes involves to integrate illness and self management.
A patient centered approach implies that healthcare professionals listen to the patients and investigate their own needs and motives that can effect positively on lifestyle changes and metabolic measurements. A patient centered attitude among health care professionals can provide inner motives for patients to make lifestyle changes and the disease eventually becomes easier to manage. Increased knowledge about patients’ integration of illness and self-management is important in order to support and speed up this process. This could lead to an improved metabolic control and also decrease diabetes-related complications. The aims of this PhD-project are to examine the effects of a patient centered intervention focusing on empowerment and to describe the illness integration process from novice to reaching a turning point in self-management in type 2 diabetes.