PROMOTING A PATIENT-CENTERED SALUTOGENIC APPROACH: BALANCING RISKS AND RESOURCES IN MEDICINE
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Keywords
autonomy, communication, empowerment, epidemiology, general practice, healing, health resources, informed consent, preventive medicine, risk factors, salutogenesis
Abstract
The preventative and curative capacity of self-assessed knowledge and personal health resources has been grossly undervalued in medicine to date. This article highlights the inherent ethical and epistemological dilemmas associated with the prevalent risk-oriented epidemiology. These dilemmas pertain to communication, autonomy, knowledge, and values. We suggest a patient-centered salutogenetic approach in order to foster a more equitable allocation of medical resources and hazards. The identification and intervention in risk factors can facilitate the prediction and, in some instances, prevention of group-level illness, in addition to generating hypotheses regarding the origins of disease. This perspective has several limitations in the individualised context of the clinical encounter, including respect to causal factors, group-level possibilities, adequate intervention endpoints, informed consent, and medicalization. We advocate for a reorientation of attention towards strengths, resources, and agency, which possess the capacity to alleviate disease risk and empower the individual, through the presentation of a salutogenic perspective. Dialogue has the capacity to accommodate both oppression and empowerment. The text offers concise demonstrations of empowerment via dialogue, incorporating self-evaluated health resources and the utilisation of a communicative key question approach.
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References
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