Abstract Body

Background and purpose

Patient-centredness is recognised as a core principle of primary care. Yet, the definitions of patient-centredness, including whether the preceding word is rightly patient-, person-, client-, or family, vary considerably. This review synthesises the concept of centredness across healthcare settings, disciplines, and nations to provide further conceptual clarity.

Methods

Scoping review following the JBI methodology to include literature about centredness within healthcare in five databases explicitly using “centredness” and “concept” within the search string. The method was prospectively uploaded to OSF. Articles were included if the concept of centredness was clearly detailed, and excluded if they focused solely on implementation. Extraction items were guided by LeMoigne’s Systemic Theory. The initial centredness coding tree was based on Mead and Bower’s framework. The coding tree was iteratively enriched as new concepts arose during two-weekly team meetings.

Results

23 004 studies were screened, 467 full text articles were reviewed, 157 studies met inclusion criteria. Preliminary concepts include: Sharing power; Sharing responsibility; Relationship; Seen as a person; Biopsychosocial; Provider as a person; Co-ordinated care; Access; Continuity of care. Few papers included the patient voice. Most justified the focus on centredness for efficiency and improved health outcomes; values of respect, equity and autonomy were common.

Conclusions

Our review includes all health disciplines and brings contextual understanding to centredness across different levels of the healthcare system. Beyond the variability in terminology, values may offer some consistency across disciplines. Our synthesis can assist clinicians, researchers and policy makers to understand centredness from a variety of perspectives across healthcare settings.