Provider behaviors or consumer participation: How should we measure person-centered care?

Current research has found that higher rates of patient-centered care (PCC) are associated with greater treatment adherence and positive treatment outcomes. However, the instruments used to access PCC primarily collect data on provider behavior, rather than consumer participation in PCC, despite the necessary co-equal and collaborative nature of PCC interactions.Cross-sectional survey data was collected from 82 mental health care consumers receiving services at two Veterans Health Administration (VHA) facilities. Participants completed surveys on perceptions of PCC, consumer involvement in care, therapeutic alliance, medication adherence, and mental health care system mistrust.Pearson correlations examined associations between scales. Multiple regression analyses were used to test whether person-centeredness and consumer involvement in care are significant independent explanatory predictors of the identified outcome variables. Significant correlation between the consumer participation and PCC subscales was mixed. Higher levels of PCC were associated with greater therapeutic alliance, less suspicion of mental health care systems, less perception of lack of support from providers, and less beliefs about group disparities in care. Consumer involvement was only significantly related to suspicion of mental health care systems.Perceived PCC was a better explanatory variable than consumer involvement in care for most of the dependent variables. This may be a function of the locus of each outcome variable. When selecting PCC measures, researchers may wish to consider whether the variables of interest are related to the consumer-/provider-as-person or the consumer-provider relationship in order to inform instrument selection.