"I Choose to Live, for Life Itself": Understanding Agency of Home-Based Care Patients Through Information Practices and Relational Dynamics in Care Networks

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Kim, Sung-In, Park, Joonyoung, Kim, Bogoan, Hong, Hwajung
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Kim, Sung-In
Park, Joonyoung
Kim, Bogoan
Hong, Hwajung
author_facet Kim, Sung-In
Park, Joonyoung
Kim, Bogoan
Hong, Hwajung
contents Home-based care (HBC) delivers medical and care services in patients' living environments, offering unique opportunities for patient-centered care. However, patient agency is often inadequately represented in shared HBC planning processes. Through 23 multi-stakeholder interviews with HBC patients, healthcare professionals, and care workers, alongside 60 hours of ethnographic observations, we examined how patient agency manifests in HBC and why this representation gap occurs. Our findings reveal that patient agency is not a static individual attribute but a relational capacity shaped through maintaining everyday continuity, mutual recognition from care providers, and engagement with material home environments. Furthermore, we identified that structured documentation systems filter out contextual knowledge, informal communication channels fragment patient voices, and doctor-centered hierarchies position patients as passive recipients. Drawing on these insights, we propose design considerations to bridge this representation gap and to integrate patient agency into shared HBC plans.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_23127
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle "I Choose to Live, for Life Itself": Understanding Agency of Home-Based Care Patients Through Information Practices and Relational Dynamics in Care Networks
Kim, Sung-In
Park, Joonyoung
Kim, Bogoan
Hong, Hwajung
Human-Computer Interaction
Home-based care (HBC) delivers medical and care services in patients' living environments, offering unique opportunities for patient-centered care. However, patient agency is often inadequately represented in shared HBC planning processes. Through 23 multi-stakeholder interviews with HBC patients, healthcare professionals, and care workers, alongside 60 hours of ethnographic observations, we examined how patient agency manifests in HBC and why this representation gap occurs. Our findings reveal that patient agency is not a static individual attribute but a relational capacity shaped through maintaining everyday continuity, mutual recognition from care providers, and engagement with material home environments. Furthermore, we identified that structured documentation systems filter out contextual knowledge, informal communication channels fragment patient voices, and doctor-centered hierarchies position patients as passive recipients. Drawing on these insights, we propose design considerations to bridge this representation gap and to integrate patient agency into shared HBC plans.
title "I Choose to Live, for Life Itself": Understanding Agency of Home-Based Care Patients Through Information Practices and Relational Dynamics in Care Networks
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.23127