Patients’ Conceptualizations of Responsibility for Healthcare: A Typology for Understanding Differing Attributions in the Context of Patient Safety

Heavey, Emily, Waring, Justin, De Brún, Aoife, Dawson, Pamela and Scott, Jason (2019) Patients’ Conceptualizations of Responsibility for Healthcare: A Typology for Understanding Differing Attributions in the Context of Patient Safety. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 60 (2). pp. 188-203. ISSN 0022-1465

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/0022146519849027

Abstract

This study examines how patients conceptualize “responsibility” for their healthcare and make sense of the complex boundaries between patient and professional roles. Focusing on the specific case of patient safety, narrative methods were used to analyze semi-structured interviews with 28 people recently discharged from hospital in England. We present a typology of attribution, which demonstrates that patients’ attributions of responsibility to staff and/or to patients are informed by two dimensions of responsibility: basis and contingency. The basis of responsibility is the reason for holding an individual or group responsible. The contingency of responsibility is the extent to which that attribution is contextually situated. The article contributes to knowledge about responsibility in complex organizational environments and offers a set of conceptual tools for exploring patients’ understanding of responsibility in such contexts. There are implications for addressing patient engagement in care, within and beyond the field of patient safety.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: narrative, patient experience, patient safety, qualitative research, responsibility
Subjects: B900 Others in Subjects allied to Medicine
C800 Psychology
Department: Faculties > Health and Life Sciences > Social Work, Education and Community Wellbeing
Depositing User: Paul Burns
Date Deposited: 22 May 2019 10:40
Last Modified: 01 Aug 2021 11:22
URI: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/39382

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