How important is patient engagement for people with HIV?
Patients who are informed and engaged tend to have better outcomes, says HealthMaker Sean Strub, activist and founder of POZ Magazine. In this video, he elaborates on the importance of patient engagement with HIV.
Transcript
If someone looks to people who are surviving, you know, who are leading vital lives while managing a, you know,
very challenging lifelong health condition or a life-threatening condition, those examples are powerful and, I think,
inspire people to take more control in their life. [GENTLE MUSIC]
I've long believed that whatever the health situation, that a patient who is informed and engaged and empowered
is going to live longer and have better health outcomes. That can't help but be the case.
The more informed I am about the mechanism of how a drug works, I think it works better, and maybe if I can, like,
visualize how it's working. And that engagement is not a single standard-- everybody has a different level of, sort of, engagement.
It's not being in denial about your health-- it's about recognizing the reality. Yes, you can look at statistics and you
can see what your condition has meant to other people who've had it or to averages, but understanding
that we're each individuals and you need to find your own path. There was a very important book written in 1990 called "Surviving AIDS" by an activist,
a person with AIDS, who was a real influence in my life, Michael Callen. And at the time, everything about the epidemic
was a death sentence. Anytime it was referenced in the media, it was inevitably fatal-- a terminal disease, a dread
disease, no cure, no survivors, 100% fatal. That was hammered in again and again and again because that's
all most people knew about it. So someone newly diagnosed, when they're reading about it, that's what they're going to read.
And I believe that, you know, just as when we get a feeling in the pit of our stomach
or we get cold feet or the hair on the, you know, back of our neck rises, that is a physiological reaction to some kind
of intellectual stimulus, and the immune system must work, to some extent, in a similar way. If it is assaulted with death sentence messages,
it simply isn't going to try as hard. On the other hand, if someone looks
to people who are surviving, you know, who are leading vital lives while managing a,
you know, very challenging lifelong health condition or a life-threatening condition, those examples are powerful
and, I think, inspire people to take more control in their life and be more confident in the health care decisions
that they make. [AUDIO LOGO]
infections
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