Stroke survivors’ patient activation and self-management: The serial mediating role of social support and resilience

Stroke is the leading cause of death and disability in Chinese adults. Self-management is closely related to stroke prognosis. This study was to investigate the relationship between patient activation and stroke survivors’ self-management and the serial mediating role of social support and resilience. This cross-sectional study recruited 611 stroke survivors from tertiary public hospitals in four provinces in China. The serial mediating effect of social support and resilience was estimated by the SPSS Process 4.0 plug-in macro Model 6. Patient activation indirectly influenced self-management via social support (b = 0.109); resilience alone moderated the relationship between patient activation and self-management (b = 0.094); and both social support and resilience serially mediated the associations between patient activation and self-management (b=0.031). The results suggest that health care providers could encourage patient activation, enhance resilience, and cultivate a positive environment of social support to improve self-management among stroke survivors.