Patient's Experience Of Illness Analysis

On September 3rd, I had a lecture on “Eliciting the Patient’s Experience of Illness” in Pharmacy Practice III. At first, I paid attention in the lecture because I had to write a reflection paper worth 20% of the grade. However, as the lecture went on, I realized that the purpose of the lecture was to highlight the changing landscape in healthcare, more emphasis on patient-centered care. Nowadays, when I walk in to a bookstore in the health section, I encounter hundreds of books that narrate the authors’ personal experiences on battling different diseases. These books are gaining in popularity because the society thirsts for more healthcare knowledge. People want to read about the narratives, the human side of medicine. As I was listening to

During the lecture, I was instructed to find about my cultural values by going through an exercise. I learned that self-values will influence my cultural competence because when understanding patient’s values, beliefs and expectations, my personal views and beliefs will impact my decisions. It was fascinating to how eliciting patient’s illness was connecting back to Pharmacy Practice I, as I had a lecture about cultural competence. Models to elicit the patient’s experience of illness started in 1978 by Kleinman and morphed through the years as new models such as ‘LEARN Model’ and ‘Patient-Centered Clinical Method’ came out. Although each model has its pros and cons, the main idea is that patient is the one who is in charge of telling the healthcare providers about his/her experience and feelings from the illness. As a pharmacist, it is imperative to differentiate between illness and disease. Illness is about psychosocial experiences from health conditions and disease is about physiological conditions. Healthcare providers should ask questions to elicit emotions, expectations from care, and ideas of what is wrong with them from patients’ illness. Patients’ narratives are beneficial because rapport can be built between healthcare professionals and patients, as empathy will build trust and form partnership with patients. Patient-centered care improves the practice of medicine by learning the human side. When this occurs, patients will commit to the care and treatment can be maximized when incorporated with scientific