World Health Organization and Self-Care
From the World Health Organization (https://who.int/health-topics/self-care)
Self-care is the ability of individuals, families and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a health worker. WHO recommends self-care interventions for every country and economic setting, as a critical path to reach universal health coverage, promote health, keep the world safe, and serve the vulnerable. Self-care interventions are evidence-based, quality tools that support self-care. They include medicines, counselling, diagnostics and/or digital technologies which can be accessed fully or partially outside of formal health services. Depending on the intervention, they can be used with or without the direct supervision of health workers.
Two of my teachers at the Australian National University, Drs. Christine Phillips and Louise Stone (both from the School of Medicine and Psychology), asked me to be part of the Technical Advisory Group for the self care competency framework. This is a series of three documents laying out competencies, knowledge and a curriculum for health and care workers to support people’s self care, focusing on people-centredness, decision-making, effective communication, collaboration, evidence-informed practice and personal conduct. The documents were released in July 2023, but I’ve only recently found them online. It’s a lovely end-of-year gift!
You can find the documents here:
