title: Research and demonstration issues in self-care: measuring the decline of medicocentrism.
abstract: Emergence of consumer health self-care is a reflection of the increased commitment of health professionals to patient education, growing consumer awareness that they are capable of sophisticated self-help, and a variety of social, economic and technological currents. These currents are reviewed and a survey of existing medical self-care programs is summarized. The attempts and potentials to evaluate these programs are critically examined. A number of important research and demonstration issues are raised including the determination of behavioral outcomes, technical limits, and manpower implications. A federal program of replicative studies on such issues would provide substantive knowledge in the self-care field, generalizable to the larger field of health education, but the hazards of undermining the voluntaristic and non-establishment character of the programs must be considered in designing evaluative studies.
mesh_terms: D001249:Asthma; D001294:Attitude to Health; D001521:Behavior Therapy; D003256:Community Participation; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006126:Group Processes; D006266:Health Education; D006280:Health Workforce / Q000600:supply & distribution; D006801:Humans; D007857:Leadership; D008396:Maryland; D009729:Nursing; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D012106:Research; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014481:United States