Patients With Age-related Macular Degeneration Lack Knowledge and Self-management Skills of Age-related

Abstract Objective:To understand the status quo and factors influencing self-management behavior in patients with age-related macular degeneration, provide evidence for better self-management and develop self-management evaluation tools. Methods:A lot of 17 patients with age-related macular degeneration were interviewed using semi-structured questionnaires. The phenomenological research method was applied, and the data were collated according to Colaizzi's 7-step phenomenological analysis method. Results: The status quo and factors influencing self-management behavior in patients with age-related macular degeneration could be summarized into five themes:1）serious daily dysfunction caused by visual impairment and inability to cope with methods and skills; 2）lack of disease cognition, timely treatment, and poor compliance; 3）the presence of underlying diseases and poor management of comorbidity; 4）lack of disease health knowledge and display of bad habits and rebuilding healthy behavior motivation; 5）negative emotion . Conclusion: Patients with age-related macular degeneration have poor self-management knowledge and self-management ability. There is a need to strengthen the thematic popular science education of age-related macular degeneration at the social level, learn from advanced countries, collaborate with medical association and communities, and actively promote the development and application of visual rehabilitation training, social psychological intervention and self-management projects.Taken together these approaches could improve the self-management ability of patients with AMD.