Distress Tolerance Intervention for Improving Self-Management of Chronic Conditions: A Systematic Review

The inability to tolerate distress can negatively influence effective self-management (SM) of chronic conditions by interfering with the ability to focus on illness needs and impairing problem-solving and prioritizing capabilities, as well as engagement in SM activities. Interventions to increase distress tolerance offer a holistic approach to chronic disease SM and may enhance the individual's ability to apply SM skills and resources to improve quality of life and overall health. The purpose of this systematic review was to deepen understanding of the relationships among distress tolerance and goal-oriented problem-solving as an aspect of chronic disease SM.

The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses recommendations were used to develop a search strategy, selection criteria, screening, and identification and extraction procedures. PubMed, CINAHL, PsychInfo, and Scopus were searched from 2006 to December 2017 using the following search terms: distress tolerance, chronic conditions, self-management.

Across the 11 studies included in the literature review, there was a high level of heterogeneity in the use of subjective and objective measures to assess distress tolerance, and only one study included instruments to measure goal-oriented problem-solving, the target of distress tolerance interventions that are assumed to influence the selected health outcome.

Further research is needed on the efficacy of distress tolerance interventions for improving SM of chronic conditions. Theory-driven interventions that explicate the precise goal-oriented problem-solving and SM behaviors that are expected to change as a result of the distress tolerance intervention will provide insight on the efficacy of the intervention and help close the theory-practice gap.