The mentoring service for chronically disease patients: a little step to recovery.

Each year, thousands of people around the world receive a diagnosis of a chronic disease. This diagnosis has become a major burden in many developed countries. The overview that the World Health Organization (WHO) provides for them is that chronic diseases, also known as noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), tend to be of long duration and are the result of a combination of genetic, physiological, environmental, and behavioral factors.

The diagnosis of a chronic disease changes people’s lives in an instant. The process of facing such a diagnosis is neither simple nor linear. Rebuilding after that is not easy. Sometimes, in this situation and throughout the process, the patient may ask unanswered questions. This will cause them to have doubts and fears.

This is when the role of non-profit organizations can be of great help, since through interdisciplinary groups they provide services to guide the newly diagnosed in this process. A comprehensive psychological department or mentoring service can be very helpful in these early stages of diagnosis.

The mentoring service is very useful for recent diagnoses, but it can also be helpful at any stage of the process. This is provided by the figure of a mentor, a person who gives younger or less experienced individuals in NCDs concrete advice about the process. The mentor can be a volunteer or an expert patient who is adept at identifying some needs that are not considered or are only poorly considered by doctors and other healthcare professionals.

A mentor is a person who gives a younger or less experienced person help and advice over a period of time at any time during the process. The mentor is an important figure who will not give opinions about what the patients should do, but instead poses open questions to the person seeking mentoring and may enable the mentee to reflect on actions they had not considered before. The mentor helps the patient make their own decisions with their advice and personal experiences. This process helps the mentee to increase self-confidence that is sometimes lost when you have a chronic disease.

The relationship between the mentor and the mentee must be based on trust and confidentiality. A few examples of this program can be found in different non-profit organizations around the world or volunteer organizations, like AGDEM in Granada (Spain), which works with multiple sclerosis patients.

Good support through transversal teams, in which there are, for example, the figures of mentors and psychologists, is the key in recovery processes, inclusion, and empowerment of newly diagnosed patients with chronic diseases. Only by working together can we have a more inclusive world.