Why do most of the posts (including my own)refer to clients when the only study I've heard of showed that they much preferred to be called patients?

well I always talk about patients for the reason you give. It also seems to me to be a much more equitable and normalising term, we are all patients when we are under a doctor, even doctors!

having said that when someones using a non medical (tier 2 or rehab or the like) service then patient probably is not appropriate, so I suppose itr has to be client or service user (In similar surveys people have preferred client to service user so perhaps client is the best term in these cases)

It's not just in drug services. I have contact with students in a range of mental health settings and the terms 'client' or 'service user' is very common. 'Patient' seems to be used when a defined 'illness' is present.

There is anxiety about the 'illness role' disabling people, and being a patient means you are ill doesn't it?

(Cue debate on the nature of addiction)

A Person using my/our services would suit surely? A little out there i know but hey.
TonyB

I'm a Nurse and I see patients. The word patient applies to everyone of us at some point in our lives, so it's not applying a particular judgement. Patient never goes out of fashion like some other term such or label.

There's a really interesting snapshot of this from a blog I've been following here:

http://mikehamel.wordpress.com/2008/07/20/a-client-not-a-patient/

Sara

In a sense the fact that this question needs to be asked is depressing. It is akin to I think the desire to want to hold a fire arm being sufficent grounds to refuse a licence.
In a nutshell clients have more power than patients and one of the resons I find this site particularly useful is that people are in the main obviously keen to work in partnership with those receiving a service.
Liked the blog,it cuts to the nub of the issue.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Sara McGrail:
There's a really interesting snapshot of this from a blog I've been following here:

http://mikehamel.wordpress.com/2008/07/20/a-client-not-a-patient/

I don't think his views are current to todays way of thinking. I imagine many people can see a client - like my hairdresser.
Nurses have for a very long time advocated for patients and educated patients, to empower them.
I don't think a patient is someone who blindly accepts any decision made by a Doctor or Nurse.
Terms like client, service-user, psycho-geriatric, Imbecile, Pauper Lunatic, Idiot, Psychopath can all go out of fashion or already have. Patient is the term that has never done so.
I'm speaking as a Nurse so I beg the forgiveness from other professions who see patients.

Who determines that the term patient has never gone out of fashion (and I might also take exception with this)Why those people who have a vested interest in seeing the status quo maintained and "patients" knowing their place in the scheme of things.
Not sure we can say we are involving people in the decision making process at all levels when the power is not evenly distributed.
Dare to look at the world and those who inhabit it differently for a day or 2.

if the term client is so empowering why is it only used in a health context to describe the socially excluded, marginalised and least powerful members of our society. Patients have rights and charters but it seems to me if you are called a client it somehow makes you different and I think may contribute in some services to people not being given the same respect as a a 'patient'.

Certainly if you are treating someone in primary care it is very incongrous, imagine, you are seeing your patients all afternoon, suddenly a drug user comes in and they are a client? the more I think about it the more wrong it seems to use it (in a primary care setting).
The fact that drug users consistantly say they prefer this must hold weight are we going to tell them what they are going top be called in order to 'empower' them. I find that rather ironic

I'm not sure going back to original definitions of words really adds to the debate.

I guess this is a question that is addressed to people working in primary care. If I came into see you and asked you not to refer to me as a patient would you abide by my wishes?

Because surely in a one to one encounter, its my right to define the abstract noun you use to refer to me. If that's different from what you call other people I think its probably unimportant. On a wider political scale across the drugs field the majority of staff have traditionally NOT been from a medical background. A probation officer for example working in a CDT is unlikely to call the person who comes to see him a patient. When I was key working as someone not medically qualified I would have felt I was being fraudulent to have called them my patient. While medical interventions may be central to some peoples experience of drug treatment, for others they're not.

My view would be that what a person who accesses your services is called is a matter for discussion if necessary between you and them. A quick look at the principles of Values Based Practice would suggest that any practitioner working with someone long term will as a matter of course take into account the different status and power 'dynamics' inherent in encounters between people who use services and people who provide them. If what people are called is felt to be important by those involved then it needs to be considered.On a wider scale, given that not all interventions are medical and not all practitioners are doctors or nurses a better term might be "people who use the service"

Speaking personally, there have been times in my own experience of healthcare services - usually at the beginning of an intervention - when I have found being called a patient really really comforting. There have also been other times - often after a longer period of interaction with medical services when I've felt very marginalised and excluded by it. As a carer I have felt the term patient when applied to my relative to be dehumanising and objectifying.

However FWIW what you do, I think, is almost always more important than what you say. Calling someone a client but treating them badly is never going to be preferable to calling someone a patient and treating them well!


Just my pennies worth

Sara

Common thread here.
'People who come in'
'A person came in the other day'
Call em people or Fred (only if their name is Fred of course).
Call them/me what you like as long as you do call.
My best
TonyB

Thanks for the replies. Some interesting comments. As I'm a GP and everybody I see whether ill or not are my patients thats what I'm going to refer to them as.