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Empowerment in de gezondheidszorg: een kwalitatief onderzoek naar het begrip empowerment omtrent het PGB

Janus, S.I.M. (2012) Empowerment in de gezondheidszorg: een kwalitatief onderzoek naar het begrip empowerment omtrent het PGB.

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Abstract:Problem: This report concerns the Dutch Personal Budget (‘Persoonsgebonden Budget’) and its significance for empowerment and self-direction. The personal budget is a direct payment scheme for persons who have a disability or chronic illness. The aim of the personal budget is to give users self-direction as to the care and assistance that they need. The government also hoped that the scheme would lead to better and more cost-effective care. However, due to the rapid growth of the payment scheme and the high health costs, the government plans to cut on the personal budget. The announcement of those plans led to agitation within the group of personal budget users. Research question: This research determines if the personal budget leads to more empowerment and self-direction of persons with disabilities or long term illnesses. Furthermore it looks at the political constraints leading to the announced changes within the personal budget of June 2011. Also the impact of those changes for persons with a personal budget was examined. Based on the results of this research possible ways to improve the communication between persons with a personal budget and the government were investigated. Method: In this research, literature was reviewed to explore the context, to study the theoretical background and to define key concepts. For the first part of this research, data were also gathered during three interviews with personal budget users and during the attendance of a meeting of a focus group. Results: The personal budget empowers the budget users by giving them contract power. Helpers are contracted by budget users. This eventually leads to self-direction. The budget user is in charge of his own life and gets a social position. The personal budget fulfills its intention; however the government wants to save expenses by restricting the personal budget. The personal budget users do not agree with the decisions of the government. Instead they are afraid of losing their self-directed life. The personal budget user needs an empowerment at the political level in order to underline his position and to be able to influence political decisions. A possible way to promote participation within this specific target group is e-participation. E-participation offers possibilities to discuss a subject, to provide information and to bring topics into agreement with the government. Conclusion: The increasing number of chronic patients and the aging of the population led to increasing costs of the AWBZ system. The government must tackle the problem. However it should take the interests of all stakeholders into account and pay special attention to its vulnerable citizens as the budget users. This group needs to be assured of care in the future. Furthermore the core values of this group, such as well-being, self-direction and attention, need to be taken into account. It is therefore important that the government makes clear decisions involving the citizens in the decision-making. The current ad hoc decisions are characterized by great uncertainty with unpredictable consequences for the budget users.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:77 psychology
Programme:Psychology MSc (66604)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/63232
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