iranian national self-care support system pattern

Context: most of the studies proved that effective self-care of patients depends on continuing systematic support of patients to improve their knowledge, skills, and confidence of self-care. with regard to the importance of self-care support system, the design of a pattern for it in iran was placed on the agenda through the ministry of health and medical education (mohme) project. the aim of this article is to develop a pattern through two steps; the first is critically analyzing the literature on the structure and functions of self-care support system, and the second is to summarize potential factors which can be used as self-care support system components in health system to synthesize the pattern. evidence acquisition: systematic literature searches of papers published between 2002 - 2014 were carried out using the electronic databases. critical interpretive synthesis (cis)wasthen undertaken to provide a comprehensive overview of the topic for developing the national pattern. finally, scrutinizing the pattern was done through focus group discussion of experts in mohme. results: we found the steps of designing a system for self-care support. then, we set the goals and strategies of self-care support programandfactors affecting the choice of self-care support pattern. then, series of interventions were selected as self-careprogram pattern by ateamof health care providersfromall levels of the health system. componentsof self-care support system in the country based on their interactions with patients and place of the program in the health care system were categorized in a matrix. conclusions: to empower the staff of self-care support system, an appropriate training design is needed beside a good self-care support program. self-care team members must teach specific information or skills to patients and their families. these members must possess special knowledge and skills. also, the evaluation of self-care support program is one of the main components of the national system of self-care.