Figure 2.

“Kaiser pyramid” about the interaction between patient disease-related self-management and professional management. In chronic diseases with little complexity in disease burden and/or therapeutic needs (level 3), self-management by persons with chronic conditions (PwCDs) is the major contributor to overall management, relative to the minor contribution of professional disease management. The more complex the disease and related therapeutic needs become (levels 2 and 1), the smaller becomes the relative contribution of self-management in comparison to professional management. The higher the relevance of professional management becomes, the more important becomes professional management support, e.g., by structured case management. Adopted from [8].