Patient empowerment: A cross-disease exploration of antecedents and consequences

Emphasized by the World Health Organization as one of its key topics, patient empowerment (PE)—i.e., the set of self-determined behaviors based on patients' individual needs for developing autonomy and competence with their disease—is today regarded as a key component of a patient-centered approach to healthcare. Unfortunately, research lacks a clear understanding of the drivers of PE, its relationship to therapy compliance, and its role in different types of diseases. Using a large sample of 1622 patients suffering from chronic diseases, this study addresses these critical research gaps and provides three major contributions. First, by exploring the influence of PE antecedents (i.e., patients' health involvement, self-efficacy, and acceptance of physician authority), it provides specific recommendations on how to effectively manage PE (defined in terms of three dimensions: information search, knowledge development, and decision participation). Second, it demonstrates the importance of PE and its antecedents for affecting patients' therapy compliance and shows that, depending on the PE dimension, therapy compliance is either enhanced or reduced. By highlighting the ambiguous role of PE in therapy compliance, the study offers specific suggestions for healthcare stakeholders on how to maximize patients' compliance to recommended therapies. Third, the study provides important insights into the role of PE across different types of chronic diseases, offering practical recommendations on how to deal with patients depending on their particular disease.