Innovative Therapy Management of Danish Comsumer-Patients

National health providers are empowering patients by assigning them an active role in their therapy process. At the same time, availability of medical information and rapid technological innovation enable modern patients to empower themselves. These empowered patients are beginning to apply a consumption approach to health.

In this PhD project I want to study the phenomenon of empowered patients from a sociological perspective. I want to investigate how sociological factors the empowerment process of different groups of patients. My motivation is to identify sociological criteria for dividing patients into classes with some predictive value regarding the success of empowerment strategies.

I find methodological support in the research perspective of ethnographic studies in the form of research visits, observations, and phenomenological interviews. The target groups will be Danish patients with uniform medical conditions undergoing a process of state-empowerment as well as self-empowered Danish patients with a consumption approach to health.