Despite the fact that many individuals express a desire for more information and involvement in the health care process, it remains to be seen if they have adopted a more participative approach by becoming involved in decisions made about their health. Research indicates that, in actual practice, individuals are differentially willing or able to be active patients. AIDS patient activists are 1 ...

OBJECTIVE The objective was to provide a synthesis of the results of the research and discourse lines on main dimensions of patient-centered care in the context of chronic disease management in family medicine, building on Stewart et al.'s model. METHODS We developed search strategies for the Medline, Embase, and Cochrane databases, from 1980 to April 2009. All articles addressing patient-cen...

ARTICLE FOCUS: The editors seek articles on a wide range of topics under the broad general umbrella of “patient-centered care.” These could include research reports, descriptions of innovative programs or initiatives, review articles, or commentaries on topics such as treatment adherence, patient empowerment, advocacy, or patient-provider collaboration—in short, anything that strengthens patien...