Living well with long-term conditions: A quantitative investigation into the influences of illness and healthcare experiences

Objectives To examine whether illness or healthcare experiences have a more significant influence on living well, and which factors in these experiences have the most influence. Methods Information collected included demographic data, illness and healthcare experience, and the LTCQ to measure living well. Data was collected via online survey platform Qualtrics. Two separate 2-stage hierarchical multiple regressions were run to investigate how much variance in living well with long-term conditions is accounted for by established and exploratory illness and healthcare experience factors. Results 70 participants met the inclusion criteria of the study, with 54 included in the analysis. Results showed that illness experience had a significant influence on living well while healthcare experience did not. The factors of illness intrusiveness in illness experience and patient assessment of chronic illness care in healthcare experience significantly impacted living well. Discussion: This study examines the influences of illness and healthcare experiences on the ability to live well with LTCs. Future research could focus on specific LTCs and compare which factors they find significantly affect living well. The findings pave the way for future explorations into the factors influencing living well differ between LTCs and the best interventions to improve living well with LTCs.