Intervention group
The intervention, consisting of PCC delivered via an interactive digital platform (“My Health”), as well as phone support, was provided in addition to TAU. The team of HCPs (n = 5) conducting the intervention represented different disciplines (e.g. nursing, physiotherapy and occupational therapy). All received a half-day education regarding CMDs and the philosophical standpoints of PCC led by specialists for each area. They also had access to a forum where they, together with specialists in PCC, could raise questions and share experiences of practising PCC. The first phone conversation was jointly scheduled between HCPs and patients in the intervention group and a web link was sent to patients for access to the digital platform. Additional follow-ups by phone were agreed and scheduled as required. The intervention aimed to apply the ethics of PCC in practice and was designed to facilitate a partnership between patients, professionals, and, if desired, the patients’ extended social network.The telephone support consisted of an HCP listening attentively to the patient’s narratives about their daily life and current situation. The HCPs encouraged narration and established a partnership using communication skills such as asking open-ended questions, sharing reflections and summarizing. Based on the patient’s narrative a health plan was co-created, which captured the patient’s experiences of their situation, capabilities, resources, needs and goals. The health plan was uploaded to the digital platform and served as a guide to be used together by the patient and HCPs in further phone conversations and communication via the platform.The platform contained functions to facilitate patients’ self-management. Thus, the patients were invited to use a diary function for free-text entries and to rate their daily symptoms, visualized as trend graphs that allowed them to follow symptoms and their recovery process over time. Patients and HCPs communicated via the platform in a chat-like forum, and patients were able to invite and give customized access to the platform to any person they wanted, such as family, friends, and workplace representatives. They also had access to links to relevant websites containing information about CMDs. A participatory design was used in which the researchers organized workshops with patient representatives, system developers and HCPs to discuss and develop the PCC eHealth intervention [