Understanding the experience of illness and treatment
Understanding the experience of illness and treatment
This chapter serves as an introduction to the topic, including a brief outline of the history and development of the field. It argues that understanding patients’ experiences is a crucial element in quality assurance, helping to redress the imbalance between the technological focus of much of modern medical care and the communication and caring skills that are so important to patients. The background to the policy focus on patient-centred care is outlined, the concept is defined, and some landmark studies of illness experiences are described. The chapter ends with a discussion on how the knowledge gained from studies of health and illness experiences can be used to transform the quality of care.
Keywords: Patients’ experience, patient-centred care, historical context, case studies, knowledge translation
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
