The complex patient: A concept clarification

Eli Manning and Marilou Gagnon

Nursing & Health Sciences, 2017, vol. 19, issue 1, 13-21

Abstract: Over the last decade, the concept of the “complex patient” has not only been more widely used in multidisciplinary healthcare teams and across various healthcare disciplines, but it has also become more vacuous in meaning. The uptake of the concept of the “complex patient” spans across disciplines, such as medicine, nursing, and social work, with no consistent definition. We review the chronological evolution of this concept and its surrogate terms, namely “comorbidity,” “multimorbidity,” “polypathology,” “dual diagnosis,” and “multiple chronic conditions.” Drawing on key principles of concept clarification, we highlight disciplinary usage in the literature published between 2005 and 2015 in health sciences, attending to overlaps and revealing nuances of the complex patient concept. Finally, we discuss the implications of this concept for practice, research, and theory.

Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/nhs.12320

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:nuhsci:v:19:y:2017:i:1:p:13-21

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Nursing & Health Sciences from John Wiley & Sons
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().