Conceptualization of patient-centered care in Latin America: A scoping review

INTRODUCTION: Patient-centered care (PCC) has been declared as a desirable goal for health care in Latin American countries, but a coherent definition of what exactly PCC entails for clinical practice is missing. This article's aim was to identify how PCC is conceptualized in Latin American countries.

METHODS: Scientific databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Scielo, Scopus, Web of Science) and webpages of the ministries of health were searched, and experts were contacted for suggestions of literature. References were included if they contained one of a range of a priori defined keywords related to PCC in the title, were published between 2006 and 2021, and were carried out in or concerned Latin America. Definitions of PCC were extracted from the included articles and analyzed using deductive and inductive coding. Deductive coding was based on the integrative model of patient-centeredness, which unites the definitions of PCC in the international literature (mainly North America and Europe) and proposes 16 dimensions describing PCC.

RESULTS: Thirty-two articles were included in the analysis and about half of them were from Brazil. Numerous similarities were found between the integrative model of patient-centeredness and the definitions of PCC given in the selected literature. The dimensions of the integrative model of patient-centeredness that were least and most prominent in the literature were physical support and patient information, respectively. A differentiation between PCC and family-centered care (FCC) was observed. Definitions of PCC and FCC as well as their cited references were diverse.

CONCLUSION: A considerable overlap between the conceptualization of PCC in Latin America and the integrative model of patient-centeredness has been identified. However, there are substantial differences between countries in Latin America regarding the emphasis of research on PCC versus FCC and diverse conceptualizations of PCC and FCC exist.

PATIENT CONTRIBUTION: This scoping review takes the patient's perspective based on the integrative model of patient-centeredness. Due to the study being a review, no patients, neither caregivers, nor members of the public, were involved.