The context of empowerment and self-care within the field of diabetes

Abstract

There is a growing emphasis within the diabetes literature on the importance of empowerment as a way of encouraging people to take control of and responsibility for the successful management of their disease. Patients are actively encouraged to become active participants in their care, and there is an expectation that health-care professionals will facilitate this process. This article uses Bourdieu's concept of field, as a bounded social space in which actors conduct their lives day-to-day, to explore the context within which issues of empowerment are addressed and negotiated. The practice of empowerment within the biologically defined and biomedically 'policed' field of diabetes is explored using empirical data from a study of diabetes health-care professionals' understanding and practices around empowerment. It is concluded that rather than promoting active self-management and empowerment, the nature of the field of diabetes, and in particular its privileging of the biomedical, can mitigate against people with diabetes negotiating the field effectively and taking control of the disease and its management.

Conceptualizing patient empowerment in cancer follow-up by combining theory and qualitative data

“…In this study there was not a clear link between empowerment and exerting self-care, a phenomenon also identified in diabetes [12]. Many patients in this sample specifically talked about self-care as something they did not want.…”

“…From another perspective, it is argued that PE potentially adds to the patients' quality of life and welfare [4,10]. From a third perspective, PE is viewed as necessary, because of the limited resources in the healthcare system which requires that patients takes on more responsibility [10,11], and might become part of a political agenda trying to limit the expanding costs of the health care system [12]. Hence, there are several reasons to focus on the empowerment of patients.…”

Empowerment in people with COPD

“…[1][2][3][4] Patient empowerment, or patients' ability to determine the approach in one's own life, is increasingly recognized as an important aspect of chronic disease management. [5][6][7][8] Empowerment is at times diff icult to def ine and conceptualize. As a process and an outcome, it is best understood within a specific context, for example, within empowerment for chronic disease management in COPD.…”

Assessment of a personalized and distributed patient guidance system

“…From the point of view of the patient, empowerment is a process of personal transformation, in which the patient develops general psychosocial skills of self-efficacy and attitudes toward his chronic condition. In the empowerment process, patients take control and responsibility for the successful management of their disease [6].…”