Positive health: conceptual place, dimensions and implications.

Positive health combines with pathology or illness to yield a broader concept of health, etymologically anchored on the concept of wholeness and enshrined in WHO's constitution. The most recognized aspects of positive health include functioning/resilience, resources/supports and quality of life. Systematic assessments of positive health are being incorporated into comprehensive diagnostic models that by attending to the totality of the person who consults may enhance effectiveness and ethics in diagnosis and care. Health, a precious human concern, constitutes a wide-ranging condition and experience. However, pathology, one of its important domains, has tended to monopolize attention when professionals discuss health and carry out health care. This short paper examines the concept of positive health, as opposed to ill-health, as well as some of its aspects or dimensions and its implications for comprehensive diagnosis and care. Copyright 2005 S. Karger AG, Basel.