Improvement of Patients' Health Confidence

Patient health confidence is an easy-to-obtain proxy measure for patient engagement and patient activation. In evidence-based literature syntheses, longitudinal studies, and empiric analyses, this measure is related to desirable consequence of medical care. Adult patients from 15 primary care practices and a national sample report on changes in health confidence over time. Exemplary practices describe how this information is used as a foundation for behaviorally sophisticated actions so necessary for improving health confidence.