Promoting Patient-Centered Care in Chronic Disease

Nowadays, many people around the world are seeing their lives being shattered and even shortened due to one or more chronic conditions. Chronic illness is a dynamic ongoing process that is determined by a complexity of factors. Patient literacy, motivation, emotional well-being, and resources play an important role on patient adaption and are important challenges for healthcare providers. A systematic patient-centered approach that enables chronic patients to play an active role in their condition management and in the decision-making process on a day-to-day basis is required. However, some studies show that health professionals do not always guide their actions by Patient-centered orientation, either by personal issues or by professional and/or institutional barriers. The present chapter aimed to provide a comprehensive approach to patient-centered care in chronic disease and offer a structured guideline as a tool for formal academic education in chronic patient-centered care. This chapter is structured in five sections: (1) Chronic disease: the challenge of the twenty-first century, (2) The patient with a chronic disease, (3) Patient-centered care in chronic diseases, (4) Issues and barriers to achieve patient-centered care, and (5) Guide tool for health professionals' training and education in patient-centered care.