Self-Care Confidence, Professional Support and Health Literacy in the UK: Results from the Living Self-Care Survey Study - 2025
The Living Self-Care Survey Study revealed that the public perceives healthcare professionals (HCPs) as supportive of self-care, but there is a notable disconnect between patients’ self-care practices and HCPs’ expectations.
The study found that most people self-care when they have symptoms, with 49% taking over-the-counter (OTC) medication, 42% doing nothing, and only 4% consulting their GP. However, there is conflicting feedback from health professionals and service-users. Health professionals believe patients are unwilling to self-care, while patients themselves say they already self-care and want more responsibility. This indicates a need for a common language and better communication between HCPs and patients.
Addressing this disconnect is crucial to empower individuals to take greater responsibility for their health and to alleviate pressure on healthcare services.
Self-Care Observatory - 2025
The Self-Care Observatory features papers curated by international experts, including both authoritative sources and grey literature, with an initial focus on making 10 high-quality papers per subject readily accessible. The platform allows for the growth of its repository while prioritising accessibility to important research.
The collection is freely available to anyone interested in self-care, as well as those who want to help others take better care of their health, supported by evidence-based research.
Infographic with Living Self-Care Study interim results- 2024
An early deep dive into self-care research by the Self-Care Forum and Imperial College London’s SCARU (Self-Care Academic Research Unit) reveals one of the major barriers to people taking better care of their own health is the lack of consistent, clear, and understandable health information. Lead author Dr Peter Smith OBE, Self-Care Forum President, concludes that such information is essential throughout life, starting at school age.
Called the Living Self-Care Survey, research sought to investigate public and health professional knowledge, attitudes and behaviours to self-care in the UK found that most people self-cared when they have symptoms, with 49 per cent taking OTC medication, 42 per cent doing nothing and 4 per cent consulting their GP.
Has the pandemic changed self-care attitudes? - 2023
A research study by Self-Care Forum President, Dr Pete Smith and Trustee, Dr Austen El Osta sought to understand how self-reported professional attitudes, perceptions and practices of self care changed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Respondents, made up of pharmacists, nurses, GPs, social prescribers and other health and social care professionals, said the importance of self-care had increased markedly during the pandemic. Indeed, respondents who felt self-care was extremely important to their service-users increased from 54 per cent to 86 per cent.
How has COVID-19 changed healthcare professionals’ attitudes to self-care? - 2023
This research studied the views of a cross-section of the healthcare workforce following the COVID-19 pandemic to understand if service users, who largely practised self-care during the pandemic, would continue these practices as a first option after the pandemic.
Dr. Me. “significantly improves” schoolchildren’s self care knowledge – 2020
A study of more than 200 schoolchildren showed that Dr. Me. – a self-care presentation designed by GP Dr Chee Yeen to empower schoolchildren – was shown to significantly improve their understanding of how to self-care common conditions.
The children attended workshops covering vomiting and diarrhoea; sore throat and fever; and minor head injuries. In the study, six case scenarios were asked at the beginning and end of the session, and children decided whether to stay home, visit the GP or attend A&E.
The self-care matrix: a unifying self-care framework – 2019
This article was published in the Self-care Journal following a review of academic and lay literature to identify conceptual models of self-care; devising a matrix to be used to view, identify, study and evaluate self-care elements in any health and wellbeing intervention, independent of the disease category or setting.