Self care as a panacea for the ills of the health care system: An assessment

Self help and self care are currently much-discussed topics in the health care fields. Clearly, there are many valuable aspects of these social movements; however, some cautions are also in order Much of the current writing fails to discuss several requirements for self 3are to be successful, such as attitude changes, not only on the part of consumers, but providers as well. Also, there is a need for more examination of the structural issues involved and the danger of a "blaming the victim ideology" developing, a danger especially present for certain groups such as the low socioeconomic groups. Many individual measures are ineffective in the face of social-structural causes of poor health and deflect effort and attention from the social problems back to the individual level.