Capacity Coaching: A New Strategy for Coaching Patients Living With Multimorbidity and Organizing Their Care

Abstract

The prevalence of chronic conditions is growing; to date, 1 in 4 Americans lives with at least one chronic condition. In the population aged 65 years and older, most live with multiple chronic conditions, or multimorbidity. Coaching interventions have been widely touted as a potential way to prevent chronic illness and as a way to help patients better self-manage their chronic illnesses. Health and Wellness Coaching (HWC) is now a respected discipline that offers certification, and HWC for patients with chronic conditions has demonstrated the potential to positively change behaviors and health outcomes. Yet, despite the enthusiasm and advancement of the discipline, the role of HWC has not been examined in light of the latest conceptual and theoretical work in the treatment of multimorbidity. In this article, we briefly describe HWC activities and the way in which they can be modified in alignment with the progress in the field of multimorbidity to form a new type of coaching, Capacity Coaching.