Chronic Illness
Chronic Illness is a peer reviewed scholarly journal which provides a forum in which researchers from a wide range of disciplines, clinicians, policy makers, and people living with chronic illness come together to clarify the common principles underlying the experience and management of chronic illness. Specifically, it:
- Publishes high quality original research
- Informs practices and policies in relation to chronic illness
- Provides rigorous insight into the experiences of people living with long term medical conditions.
Chronic Illness is an important journal for those who study, work with, manage or experience chronic illness. It integrates academic and clinical perspectives, and those of people living with long term medical conditions. It promotes new thinking about models of illness and care. It considers the range of appropriate clinical and psychosocial interventions, including organisational frameworks at the interface between primary and secondary care.
It encourages the study of emerging issues in early diagnostics; outcome based performance, data gathering and surveillance challenges; ageing and developmental issues; the changing self-perceptions of people with chronic illness; quality of life measures and interventions; medication concordance; and the efficacy of self-management strategies, group participation programmes and remote medical management.
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Chronic illnesses are prolonged, do not resolve spontaneously, and are rarely completely cured. The most common are cardiovascular diseases (hypertension, coronary artery disease, stroke and heart failure), the arthritides, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes and epilepsy. There is increasing evidence that mental illnesses such as depression are best understood as chronic health problems. HIV/AIDS has become a chronic condition in those countries where effective medication is available.
As life expectancy increases, so does the likelihood that people will become susceptible to chronic illness. Between 1996 and 2020, the population aged over 65 is projected to increase by about 82% globally (110% in less developed countries, and 40% in more developed countries). Chronic disease is now the main reason why people seek health care in the developed world. Because of the difficulty and duration of treatment, the costs of chronic health conditions are enormous: in the USA it now consumes 70% of health care spending [Holman H., Lorig K. Patients as partners in managing chronic disease. BMJ 2000, 320.526-7].
Awareness is increasing that similar strategies can be effective in treating many different conditions. These are likely to involve the proactive identification of relevant populations; to provide support for the relationship between people living with long term health conditions and health and social care professionals; to develop evidence-based care guidelines which emphasise the prevention of exacerbation and complications; and promote empowerment strategies for people living with chronic illness, such as self-management and education. They also require continuous evaluation of clinical, humanistic and economic outcomes.
Matthew Sorenson | Texas A&M University, USA |
Michelle Judge | University of Connecticut, USA |
Joan Austin | Indiana University, USA |
Jose Luis Ayuso-Mateos | Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain |
Malcolm W Battersby | Flinders University, Australia |
Pim Cuijpers | Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands |
Walid El Ansari | University of Gloucestershire, UK |
Andrew Farmer | University of Oxford, UK |
Linda Gask | University of Manchester, UK |
Brian Hurwitz | Kings College London, UK |
Adria D A Kaptein | Leiden University Medical Centre, The Netherlands |
Cindy Lam | University of Hong Kong, China |
Carl May | University of Southampton, UK |
Ilse Mesters | Maastricht University, Netherlands |
Sania Nishtar | Heartfile, Pakistan |
John Piette | Centre for Practice Management, USA |
K. Srinath Reddy | Public Health Foundation of India, India |
Juan Angel Bellon Saameno | Centro de Salud El Palo, Spain |
Eileen Savage | University College Cork (NUI), Ireland |
Ezra Susser | Columbia University, USA |
Claus Vogele | University of Surrey Roehampton, UK |
Manuscript submission guidelines can be accessed on Sage Journals.