To maintain the correct balance between patient choice and patient protection, all health care practitioners must draw on their own knowledge and training. Patients often feel they have been badly informed, or have been deprived of the power to make decisions, even though the practitioner was "acting in the patient's best interests". This book discusses and evaluates the two main approaches to advocacy: empowering the patients with information, and endorsing their needs by speaking out on their behalf. It is an accessible yet authoritative analysis of the nature of advocacy in the health care professions, and puts forward a research-based model which practitioners can use in their study or in everyday