Nurses' Readiness to Engage Patients in Healthcare

Abstract

A recent article (1) on ethical issues related to patient engagement in healthcare from the perspectives of patients, clinicians and researchers has made me reflect on nurses' readiness to engage patients. Patient engagement has received much attention in today's healthcare. Such emphasis is reflected in the expressions and emphases used to describe healthcare, with terms such as patient-centred care. While the meanings of patient engagement vary considerably, engagements may include patients to be actively involved in treatment plans and sharing their expectations and decisions (2). Not only nurses are understood to be the enablers of this engagement (3), helping and supporting the patient to be engaged in healthcare is established to be one of the duties of a professional nurse.