Patient involvement in general practice care: a pragmatic framework

This paper presents a pragmatic framework to guide decisions on involving people in general practice care. Patient involvement may be defined as: enabling patients to take an active role in deciding about and planning their healthcare. It can be located at different levels of care, including the patient-clinician contact or episode of care, and the patient population served by a care provider, or the regional or national population. The involvement of patients depends on considerations that include the aim of patient involvement, the type of health decision, and the type of patient. With respect to the aims, the fundamental question is whether involvement is seen as desirable in itself, or whether it is expected to result in favourable consequences. We suggest that patients' ability and willingness to be involved should determine the level of involvement. The concept of involving patients is relatively new, and new approaches are required to overcome obstacles for its implementation in healthcare.