NIH Record - National Institutes of Health

Riegel Explores Intersection of Self-Management, Symptom Science

Dr. Barbara Riegel
At a recent NINR Director’s Lecture, Dr. Barbara Riegel described her research program in adult chronic illnesses such as heart failure.

Dr. Barbara Riegel recently presented the NINR Director’s Lecture, “At the Intersection of Self-Management and Symptom Science.” Like many events originally scheduled to take place on campus, Riegel’s lecture was presented online in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Professor of gerontology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and codirector of the International Center for Self-Care Research, Riegel described her research program in adult chronic illnesses such as heart failure. 

She began studying heart failure after finishing her Ph.D., when, as a clinical nurse researcher, she was tasked with determining which patients in a health care system were repeatedly admitted and what could be done to reduce these readmissions.

After discovering that it was heart failure patients who were repeatedly readmitted, Riegel began a series of heart failure disease management trials, marking the start of her research in this population.

“I never saw myself as a theorist when I went into this,” Riegel admitted, describing how her research led to a series of theoretical developments. She considers her major area of impact in measurement, however, including the Self-Care of Heart Failure Index, as well as self-care inventories for hypertension, coronary heart disease, diabetes, COPD, chronic illness and others available at http://self-care-measures.com. 

View Riegel’s full lecture at https://www.youtube.com/NINRnews

The NIH Record

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