Pirjo Kaakinen

Patient counselling in clinical healthcare settings (Counselling)

The research group develop and evaluate the effects of counselling interventions (e.g. digital counselling) on health of patients with chronic disease and their relatives in clinical healthcare settings. We also describe the experiences of counselling from the patients’, relatives’, healthcare professionals’ and nursing leaders’ perspective. Focus of the research is human-centered and sustainable counselling.

The aim is to support the implementation of customer-oriented counselling and counselling competence from the perspective of the customer, family members and staff. The effectiveness of the research is assessed from the perspective of the target group and society, for example, as changes in the quality of guidance, adherence to treatment, risk factors of illness, healthcare costs and resources, and work processes.

Research topics:

• Digital health pathways and counselling to support adherence to self-care.
• Digital counselling interventions to support evidence-based healthcare.
• Effects of digital counselling on patients’ adherence of self-care, quality of counselling and patients related outcomes.