Psychologie de la santé et éducation thérapeutique : état des lieux et perspectives

The aim of Patient Education (PE) is to make patients with chronic diseases more autonomous by facilitating their adherence to treatments and improving their quality of life. It is a multidisciplinary and expanding device. This article's aim is to propose a state of play of PE and its perspective in relation to psychology, especially health psychology, as a discipline and a practice. First, the development of PE in its historical context is presented as well as its definition. Then, the place and contribution of health psychology and psychologists in PE is presented. The following points deal with the contributions of research to understand the efficacy of PE, the difficulties that the different professionals face and the place of relatives. Finally, a reflexion about the links between the training of psychologists and the training for PE is proposed.