International Journal of Person Centered Medicine

2023 Geneva Declaration on Person Centered Prevention and Health Promotion: From the Clinic to Public Health

Juan E. Mezzich — 2024-09-18

Enhancing Clinical Care Through Person Centered Medicine

Inés Bustamante — 2024-09-18

A Person-Centered Approach in Ophthalmology: Optimizing Glaucoma Care

Snježana Kaštelan — 2024-09-18

Person-centered medicine is a programmatic and collaborative initiative that positions the patient as a whole person at the focal point of health and healthcare. Its primary objectives are committed to improving the overall well-being of each individual, addressing both the challenges of disease and the positive dimensions of health. It signifies a paradigmatic effort aimed at redirecting the emphasis from disease to the patient and the person, bridging connections between the realms of science and humanism. Significant advances in the understanding of modern medicine underscore the importance of recognizing patients’ needs, a trend observed not only in general medicine but also in the field of ophthalmology. Glaucoma, being one of the primary causes of global blindness, represents a central focus in current research on patient-centered care in ophthalmology. Person-centered medicine presents substantial opportunities to enhance the care of glaucoma patients by facilitating collaborative treatment decision-making and improving medication adherence through a more engaged clinician-patient relationship. Despite these potential benefits, the current body of research on person-centered medicine in ophthalmology, particularly in the context of glaucoma, is limited. This scarcity of studies underscores the urgent need for further research and a more comprehensive understanding of how person-centered approaches can positively impact the care and outcomes of patients with glaucoma.

Optimizing Cardiology Care Through Person Centered Medicine: Focus on Arterial Hypertension

Dante E. Manyari — 2024-09-18

Background: The official world of cardiology seems to have embraced person centered care (PCC). However, the broad application of PCC in everyday cardiology practice is still work in progress. In the field of arterial hypertension (HTN), for instance, in spite of the availability of excellent therapies control of HTN is poor worldwide.
Objective: To review specific recommendations contributing to better care of persons with HTN using PCC principles and methods.
Methods: This is a narrative overview of how practicing effective communication and making shared decisions, two cornerstone principles of PCC, may take the theory of PCC into the bedside practice of HTN management.
Results: Effective communication skills is paramount to foster relationship and trust, educate and solve uncertainties, build holistic management and self-care, and is an important tool in the process of shared-decisions. In turn, effective shared decision increase health literacy, diminish uncertainties and misinformation, establish personalized goals, takes into account preferences and values of patients and families, and compare alternative approaches of management, resulting in unique optimal decisions on HTN management in a person-oriented fashion. Treatment decisions arrived in this manner are associated with improved adherence which in turn results in better clinical outcomes. The multiple PCC tasks required for optimal and effective management of person with HTN may be best accomplished by health care teams.
Conclusions: Care for persons with HTN using PCC methods is not only associated with better patient and family satisfaction but it also improve patient outcomes by advancing adherence. Moreover, care for persons experiencing HTN may be optimized by using PCC methods in clinical settings with multidisciplinary teams.

Sexual Health Care Centered on Persons and their Partners

Juan E. Mezzich — 2024-09-18

Introduction: Person Centered Psychiatry and Medicine places the person at the center of the concept of health and as the key goal and main protagonist of health actions. The main precedents for Person Centered Medicine (PCM) in the sexual health field include, first, the integrative and person- and couple-centered approach to mental and sexual health developed by Mezzich and Hernandez-Serrano and their broadly international colleagues in the Section of Psychiatry and Sexual Health of the World Psychiatric Association. A second precedent involves the formulation on persons-centered care for people experiencing sexual conditions by Brajkovic, Hernandez-Serrano et al.

Objective: This article presents a model of person-centered sexual health care seeking to extend to the broad matrix of persons and their partners the principles and strategies of Person Centered Medicine (PCM).

Method: In ordert to achieve the stated objective, this paper builds on systematic conceptualization studies on Person Centered Medicine and the delineation of general strategies derived from PCM principles for advancing clinical care and health education. To do so, the paper incorporates contributions to sexual health and sexual education consistent with the broad concepts of Person Centered Medicine.

Results: The paper organizes in a tabular format the recognized principles of Person Centered Medicine and a set of derived clinical care and health education strategies derived from them aimed at advancing the practical implementation of sexual health care and sexual education centered on persons and their partners.

Discussion: The tabulated results are amplified and complemented with pertinent reflexions and recommendations from the broad literature on Person Centered Medicine.

Conclusions: The paper concludes with the fundamental meaning of the offered practical recommentadions highlighting the value of observing the rights and responsibilities of persons and their partners to cultivate sexual wellbeing based on the ethical imperative of lifes well lived.

Culture in Person-Centered Clinical Care and Public Health: Contributions of Medieval Arabic and Islamic Medicine

Ihsan M. Salloum — 2024-09-18

Culture refers to shared practices reflected in language, religion, beliefs, rituals, family structure, and moral/legal systems. It is universal, local, generationally transmitted, and pervasive, as every living person is embedded within a cultural context. Culture is a key determinant of health-behavior, from the experience of illness and wellbeing, to the expression of distress and symptom manifestations, to attitude towards seeking care. Culture provides the framework of the patient-carer relationship and the expectations for care. Cultural Awareness and Responsiveness is one of the core concepts of Person-centered Medicine (PCM). PCM calls for considering ethnic identity, cultural values, language, communication needs, gender, sexual preference, spiritual needs as crucial components of optimal care for the individual and the community at large. Ancient and traditional medical practices are an expression of unique cultural heritage, many of which emphasize person-centered principles. The historical medical practices of Arabic and Islamic traditions during its golden age, was the most advanced of its time and echoed in many of its practices the principles of person-centered medicine. Arabic and Islamic historical medical practices during its golden age was a complex and transformative system of medical education and care. It represented the first example of a pre-modern system in terms of hospitals that were publicly funded and functioned both as a medical school as well as a hospital. Care provided was based on principles of social justice, benevolence, and egalitarianism in receiving care derived from religious traditions. An example is presented of one such hospital called Bimaristan Argun Alkamili in Aleppo, Syria (1354) (bimaristan is a Persian word for house of the sick) that was built specifically to care for the mentally ill. The Bimaristans became a prototype of modern hospitals in Europe. The Bimaristan Argun Al-Kamili embodied many person-centered principles by providing a host of personalized care elements, from medicinal plants, aroma, music and story-telling therapies to a forward-looking architectural design which provided an eco-habitat that promoted healing in a humanistic, caring and dignifying environment.