New article by Munthe, C, El-Alti, L, Hartvigsson, T, Nijsingh, N.

Person centred care is usually seen as a tool to empower and emancipate patients, and to make health professionals better adapt care to patient’s personal situation and preferences.Recently, however, person centred strategies have been increasingly lifted as essential tools in antibiotic stewardship, to help persuading patients who demand antibiotics for normal infections to accept restricted prescription practices. This means that person centred care is used not to empower patients, but to make them change their minds for the sake of public health, which may seem to contradict the ethical rationale of person centredness. The article analyzes this notion, alongside many other ideas of having person centred care where health professionals dispute and debate with patients, and concludes that this use of person centredness to promote antibiotic stewardship is, in fact, both desirable and acceptable from an ethical standpoint.

Link to article: https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/jaic.18022.mun