The Value of Measuring Patient Engagement in Healthcare

Abstract

The concept of patient engagement offers a unique opportunity to inform our understanding of patients' ability to be active in managing their care. However, unless promoting the active role of patients is today identified as a priority to promote care quality, a wide debate still exists on how to translate this principle into practice and how to assess initiatives aimed at increasing the level of patient participation in their care. Measuring patient engagement along the care course might ensure that the medical care truly serves patients' needs, priorities, and preferences. Unless the measurement of patient engagement is today a big issue for policy makers and healthcare practitioners, only few scientifically validated assessment tools currently exist to identify patients' level of involvement in their healthcare. In this chapter authors review the main validated tools currently available in the scientific community devoted to assess the patients' ability and availability to be actively engaged in their care, with a particular focus on the recently developed Patient Health Engagement Scale, specifically designed to assess the emotional and psychological adaptation of patients along their care process and their level of engagement in the healthcare management.