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Self-management support is a major task of nurses in chronic care. Several conceptualizations on what self-management support encompasses are described in the literature. However, nurses’ attitudes and perceptions related to self-management support are not known.

To reveal distinctive perspectives of nurses toward self-management support in chronic care.

A Q-methodological study was conducted in which nurses rank-ordered 37 statements on self-management support. Thereafter they motivated their ranking in semi-structured interviews.

A purposive sample of 49 Dutch nurses with a variety of educational levels, age, and from different healthcare settings was invited by e-mail to participate in the study. Thirty-nine nurses (aged 21–54 years) eventually participated. The nurses worked in the following settings: hospital (n = 11, 28%), home-care …