The patient in a web of dependency: The social context of patient rights and autonomy

The publication falls within the field of social sciences and addresses relevant issues from the perspective of the recipient of health services. The area of analysis combines theoretical approaches that are "atypical" for this issue and, in addition to the basic social context, it also takes into account the ethical, moral, legal and marketing context. The book presents a network of basic relationships in which the contemporary recipient of medical services is entangled and characterises the manifestations of his autonomous decisions and behaviours, illustrating the dysfunctionality of the health care system. The factors that influence the recipients' actions in the sphere of health care are many, out of necessity, macro-social determinants of activity (especially of an institutional nature) and micro-social ones, concerning the course and formation of interactions, were selected. The theoretical perspective was deepened by a dimension of empirical analysis (using an online experiment, an online survey, a sociological analysis of found documents and a mapping technique). The empirical analysis enriched and gave credibility to the characterisation of the studied fragment of social reality, related to the specific situation of the patient, forced to cope with a health care system that still appears complicated and unfriendly to the patient , with procedures seeming more important than the well-being of the person.