Promoting patient empowerment in the healthcare system: highlighting the need for patient-centered drug policy

Abstract

In recent years the term 'patient empowerment' has increasingly been used among healthcare policy makers; however, discussions have focused on narrow activities that as stand-alone activities would be unlikely to give patients power. This paper presents findings from a systematic review of the medical literature. After offering a new definition of patient empowerment, we review the literature behind the concept, aided by a conceptual model. The model is derived from our review of all papers published in medicine (Medline) between 1980 and 2005, and is focused around issues related to the antecedents, activities and outcomes of patient empowerment, especially as they relate to researchers who may need to formulate or evaluate public policies aimed at the issue. We strive to stimulate more discussion of the linkages between public policy and patient empowerment, identifying a need to take a holistic approach, especially when policies are aimed at empowering patients in the area of personal drug management.

Patient empowerment in Europe: is no further research needed?

“…Our survey of the literature seems to confirm that PE has become a sort of umbrella concept for a wide range of activities and outcomes [26], as often happens with multidisciplinary approaches [27]. Its success seems due to both the political views of society and loss of confidence in healthcare professionals [28], especially physicians, who should 'come down off their pedestal' [29].…”

Empowerment in medicine: An analysis of publication trends 1980–2005

“…While this paper primarily focuses on the numerical analysis of the empowerment literature, we also present a brief analysis of the content of each of the categories (and sub-categories) found in our study as a more detailed analysis of articles focusing specifically on patient empowerment was previously published [2]. Given the breadth of the literature and the numbers of papers involved, we did not aim to present an overview of all facets of the literature, but rather present the reader with a brief overview and a small number of readings that are particularly relevant to health care policy in Europe.…”

“…Exact definitions of patient empowerment vary, depending on the disciplinary background of scholars as well the target populations of interest [3,13,18,19]. In our previous review of this particular literature, we define patient empowerment as a "continuous process through which patients (and patient groups) work in partnership with their healthcare system to enable patients to become more responsible for, and involved in their treatment and healthcare" [2] In the literature, this enabling process has been approached in different ways, and varies depending on whether the focus is on individual patients, families or communities of patients with similar conditions. We review each of the sub-groups of patient empowerment as follows.…”

“…In recent years the term 'empowerment' has become a catchphrase in academic medicine and the concept has been applied to a range of populations and settings [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. Empowerment has been studied in the context of quality improvement, health care policy reform, health care ethics, consumerism, philosophy, partnerships, psychology, and information imbalance [11].…”

“…Empowerment has been studied in the context of quality improvement, health care policy reform, health care ethics, consumerism, philosophy, partnerships, psychology, and information imbalance [11]. Parallel literatures have also examined how patients can become empowered through shared decision making and selfmanagement of therapy [2,12].…”