Patient Participation in Health Care

Patient participation in health care 1
PATIENT PARTICIPATION IN HEALTH CARE
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

Patient participation in health care 2
Introduction
Leadership in healthcare revolves around a set of skills and knowledge application by
nurses and health practitioners. Registered nurses exercise their skills in various clinical cases
and in an attempt to manage clinical conditions of patients. As echoed by Castro et al. (2016),
patients often seek medical attention from nurses and physicians and the health care service is
delivered in form of treatment and health education. One of the skills that nurses exercise is to
engage patients in their care. In order to understand a condition and manage it in the most
effective manner, the patient’s participation is of essence as they have knowledge of the disease
symptoms and the condition’s experience.
In order for health care provision to be effective and satisfactory, it must be patient
centered. In the world today, a patient centered care provision is taking shape and being
practiced often as opposed to the provider centric care provision which limits the patient’s
participation. As echoed by Stewardson et al. (2016), the traditional provider centric care
operates by the fact that the patient should only follow strictly what the provider advices so as to
regain good health and that the nurse or care provider is more knowledgeable and therefore
disregards the patient’s contribution to their health promotion. The aim of this discussion is to
explain why encouraging patient participation in their care is important as part of a registered
nurse’s skills to promote health.
Impact of patient participation on behavioral changes
Engaging patients in their care has a huge impact in ensuring quality and safe patient
outcomes. It helps reduce risks associated with a condition. It also encourages informed decision
making in health seeking and enables the patient to better understand their condition and self-

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manage them. According to Tobiano et al. (2015), engaging patients assists in understanding
their belief systems and culture and incorporate a treatment plan that they are comfortable with
hence assisting in the healing process. A health care setting is bound to have people from
different walks of life and cultural backgrounds. It is therefore important for the nurse to
understand the patient before implementing a care plan. Engaging the patient in care assists the
nurse to detect certain behavior patterns that put the patient at risk of the condition worsening
(Angel & Frederiksen, 2015). There are a number of conditions that are worsened by risky
behaviors such as unhealthy diet and lifestyles. Examples of diseases highly linked to unhealthy
lifestyles are diabetes, hypertension and obesity. Diabetes for example is a condition linked to
high blood sugar levels. In case of a patient suffering from this condition, it is important for the
care provider to seek information from the patient concerning their diet and lifestyles as a whole.
This information can only be obtained from engaging the patient in assessing their family and
social history.
Vaismoradi, Jordan & Kangasniemi (2015) state that a good physician-patient
relationship is of essence to enhance participation of the patient in their care. A good rapport
should therefore be always maintained so as to obtain maximal feedback from the patient. In the
case of a diabetic patient for example, the patient might give information on their daily diet on
engagement and this information would be quite advantageous in an attempt to prevent
worsening of the symptoms. For example, the care provider might detect high intake of sugary
foodstuff in the patient’s diet. The patient will then be advised on healthy eating and this will be
implemented in the patient’s care provision. The patient will also prevent future recurrence and
worsening of the condition by engaging in a healthy lifestyle.