The concept of functioning pertains to how people function in everyday life, in the performance of activities, and in the areas of life in which they participate. Functioning is currently increasingly recognized as being crucial to the concept of health as the scope of health care has extended in the last decade beyond curing diseases to the prevention of diseases and the promotion of well-being. Functioning, as described by the World Health Organization (WHO) in the International Classification of Functioning Disability and Health (ICF), is the central concept in this thesis. The WHO provides with the ICF an international discipline-independent standard terminology for functioning and a conceptual model of health. In six different studies, application of standard terminology as well as the conceptual model were studied in order to obtain information that is relevant for developing strategies for implementing functioning in health care.
The results of this thesis demonstrated that language ambiguity regarding functioning exists both in clinical practice and research. It was also shown that the mindset of health care professionals is not yet focused on functioning in health care. They deliver care to patients by using tools and skills predominantly focused on disease and disorders, however when functioning is included health care is more closely related to patients’ self-reported problems without a loss of focus on medical issues. A training in using the standard terminology of functioning and the conceptual model of health has a positive influence on perceived usefulness of the ICF.
In current health care, functioning can be seen as an useful concept and the use of the ICF may facilitate the implementation.

See: http://hdl.handle.net/11370/95409a1c-a924-43b4-88dd-5dd3fdf81cb9