Mevolution - Contribution Towards Greater Involvement
Mevolution - Contribution Towards Greater Involvement
What are the main contributing factors that determine your health? Your own habits, external factors or a combination of both? Your involvement in understanding this will greatly aid your well-being.
>The psychological term used for this is “Locus of control”.
Locus of control is the degree to which people believe that they have control over the outcome of events in their lives, as opposed to external forces beyond their control. Understanding of the concept was developed by Julian B. Rotter in 1954, and has since become an aspect of personality studies.
"Locus", (Latin for "place" or "location") is conceptualized as either “Internal”, those people who believe they can control their life, or “External”, meaning they believe their decisions and life are controlled by environmental factors which they cannot influence, or that chance or fate controls their lives.
Initially everyone needs to identify their “locus”. For an effective treatment primarily an “Internal” locus of control is required. Essentially it means the “Patient” should take control over their treatment.
A range of different approaches can contribute to the individual’s involvement and let them take control over their treatment.
A consumerist approach: health and health care is seen as a marketplace in which patients (consumers) are involved by making choices about services, and the health care market responds to their preferences. Patient involvement is then a means to improve quality.
A democratic approach: people have political, social and economic rights as citizens, and those who use or are affected by a public service should be involved in how it is run, and have certain rights regarding what they receive from that service.
An ethical and outcomes-based approach: involvement is seen as the ethical thing to do and the best approach to improve outcomes. This means recognizing that good care comprises the application to individual circumstances of evidence-based medicine along with knowledge and experience. Patient involvement is essential to the judgment of relative risk and benefit associated with decision-making.
A value-based approach: to achieve truly the best value for money from our health and care system, we must know and respond to what people need and want. In this way, we can deliver care that meets their preferences and patients receive ‘the care they need (and no less), and the care they want (and no more)’ (Mulley et al 2012).
An approach based on sustainability: it is increasingly difficult for health systems to provide the best possible care to everyone as the prevalence of long-term conditions increases and the population ages. By involving people in managing their own health and care, and keeping well and independent, we can minimize our use of services.
A person-centered care approach: our health and care system should be focused on its users, promoting independence and co-ordination around people’s full needs rather than being fragmented. Patient involvement is an essential component of delivering a more person-centered service that is tailored and responsive to individual needs and values.
As the patients seek increased involvement and empowerment, the balance of responsibility also shifts, and patients must increasingly play a role in maintaining and managing their own health.
What are your responsibilities in an effective treatment and the maintenance of good health and can help the services to work effectively?
Responsibilities those are conditional for access to treatment (such as abstaining from alcohol before a liver transplant). Responsibility to do something as part of your own health care (such as taking your prescribed medicines). Responsibility in your wider life to behave in certain ways for your own health, often in the long term (such as not smoking, or eating healthily). Responsibility to meet agreements or good standards of social behavior in your contact with services (such as not abusing staff and not missing your appointments without reason). Responsibility to do something that might have a small real or perceived cost to you but has wider population-level benefits.
Involvement provides opportunities to achieve a balance between rights and responsibilities, but the challenge to dominant hierarchies and new roles that it requires individuals to adopt presents a significant hurdle to be overcome.
Next on the series is “Shared Decision Making Process”
*references “People in control of their own health and care” Wikipedia
