'Let us be'. Social support needs of people with acquired long-term disabilities and their caregivers in rehabilitation practice in the Netherlands.

In many European countries, including the Netherlands, current care policies encourage 'active citizens' to support each other rather than having individuals rely on paid professional help. Rehabilitation centres also put greater emphasis on social networks assisting adults with acquired long-term disabilities and their caregivers. Often these adults and their caregivers feel insufficiently prepared to cope with the disability in daily life and struggle with community integration.

Social dignity for marginalized people in public healthcare: an interpretive review and building blocks for a non-ideal theory.

Jacobson (Social Science & Medicine 64:292-302, 2007) finds two distinct meanings of "dignity" in the literature on dignity and health: (1) intrinsic human dignity and (2) social dignity constituted through interactions with caregivers. Especially the latter has been central in empirical health research and warrants further exploration. This article focuses on the social dignity of people marginalized by mental illness, substance abuse and comparable conditions in extramural settings.

Being a burden to others and wishes to die: The importance of the sociopolitical context.

All articles in May 2019's special issue of Bioethics offer profound insights into the issue of "being a burden to others" in relation to wishes to die, which are highly relevant for ethical debates about end-of-life care and physician-assisted dying. In this reply, we wish to stress the importance of acknowledging and analyzing the sociopolitical context of the phenomenon "being a burden" in relation to wishes to die and we will show how this analysis could benefit from a care ethical approach. As discussions in care ethics have made clear, caring practices are both social and political practices.

Financial performance, employee well-being, and client well-being in for-profit and not-for-profit nursing homes: A systematic review.

Background: Expanding the opportunities for for-profit nursing home care is a central theme in the debate on the sustainable organization of the growing nursing home sector in Western countries.

Purposes: We conducted a systematic review of the literature over the last 10 years in order to determine the broad impact of nursing home ownership in the United States. Our review has two main goals: (a) to find out which topics have been studied with regard to financial performance, employee well-being, and client well-being in relation to nursing home ownership and (b) to assess the conclusions related to these topics.

[The core of solidarity].

Dutch Journal of Medicine (NTVG) Lecture 2013: Organized solidarity in a welfare state is impersonal, restricted and based on enlightened self-interest. Critics of the welfare state argue that it is obsolete and we should aim for a society based on individual participation. They believe that people now prefer individualized care, that it is no longer possible to set boundaries and that too much altruism is required from those with higher incomes.

Differences in timely antenatal care between first and second-generation migrants in the Netherlands.

To assess whether there are differences in the timing of first antenatal care visit between 1st and 2nd-generation migrants, and if so, how such differences could be explained. The study has been conducted in the framework of Generation R Study, a multi-ethnic population-based study conducted in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The study population consists of 845 women of the six largest ethnic groups.

News media coverage of euthanasia: a content analysis of Dutch national newspapers.

Background: The Netherlands is one of the few countries where euthanasia is legal under strict conditions. This study investigates whether Dutch newspaper articles use the term 'euthanasia' according to the legal definition and determines what arguments for and against euthanasia they contain.

Methods: We did an electronic search of seven Dutch national newspapers between January 2009 and May 2010 and conducted a content analysis.

Voice and choice by delegation.

In many Western countries, options for citizens to influence public services are increased to improve the quality of services and democratize decision making. Possibilities to influence are often cast into Albert Hirschman's taxonomy of exit (choice), voice, and loyalty. In this article we identify delegation as an important addition to this framework.

Differences in quality of antenatal care provided by midwives to low-risk pregnant dutch women in different ethnic groups.

Introduction: The objective of this study was to evaluate whether differences existed in the adherence to the Dutch national guidelines regarding basic antenatal care by Dutch midwives for low-risk women of different ethnic groups.

Methods: This was an observational study using data from electronic antenatal charts of 7 midwife practices (23 midwives), participating in the Generation R Study. The Generation R Study is a multiethnic, population-based, prospective, cohort study that is investigating the growth, development, and health of urban children from fetal life until young adulthood.

Comparative review of family-professional communication: what mental health care can learn from oncology and nursing home care.

Because family members take on caring tasks and also suffer as a consequence of the illness of the patient, communication between health-care professionals and family members of the patient is important. This review compares communication practices between these two parties in three different parts of health care: oncology, nursing home care, and mental health care. It shows that there are important differences between sectors.

The doctor and the market: about the influence of market reforms on the professional medical ethics of surgeons and general practitioners in the Netherlands.

To explore whether market reforms in a health care system affect medical professional ethics of hospital-based specialists on the one hand and physicians in independent practices on the other. Qualitative interviews with 27 surgeons and 28 general practitioners in The Netherlands, held 2-3 years after a major overhaul of the Dutch health care system involving several market reforms. Surgeons now regularly advertise their work (while this was forbidden in the past) and pay more attention to patients with relatively minor afflictions, thus deviating from codes of ethics that oblige physicians to treat each other as brothers and to treat patients according to medical need.

Government influence on patient organizations.

Patient organizations increasingly play an important role in health care decision-making in Western countries. The Netherlands is one of the countries where this trend has gone furthest. In the literature some problems are identified, such as instrumental use of patient organizations by care providers, health insurers and the pharmaceutical industry.

The relationship between mental health workers and family members.

Objective: To study the relationship between family members and mental health care workers to learn more about the support available to family members of mental health patients.

Methods: Eighteen interviews were conducted with family members, seven with professionals and two with patients. Observations were performed at a long-term hospital ward and at family and client council meetings.

Patient participation in collective healthcare decision making: the Dutch model.

Objective: To study whether the Dutch participation model is a good model of participation.

Background: Patient participation is on the agenda, both on the individual and the collective level. In this study, we focus on the latter by looking at the Dutch model in which patient organizations are involved in many formal decision-making processes.

Exciting but exhausting: experiences with participatory research with chronically ill adolescents.

Background: Adolescents with chronic conditions are major users of paediatric hospitals, but seldom participate in the evaluation of services or in research. Little is known about the usefulness of the participatory approach in adolescent health research.

Objective: To evaluate the feasibility, benefits and limitations of a participatory research (PR) project involving chronically ill adolescents as co-researchers.

Reconsidering patient participation in guideline development.

Health care has become increasingly patient-centred and medical guidelines are considered to be one of the instruments that contribute towards making it so. We reviewed the literature to identify studies on this subject. Both normative and empirical studies were analysed.

Fighting sectional interests in health care.

In the 1970s policy making in The Netherlands took place in sectoral networks, consisting of professional interest groups and like minded civil servants, advisory councils, mp's and departmental ministers. In this article the author examines whether such a sectoral policy network still exists in Dutch health care by comparing past and present data on the background of civil servants, mp's and departmental ministers. Next she describes the political fight against the health care sectoral network, which has gone on for decades.