Self-care

Self-care is personal health maintenance. It is the extent to which an individual, family or community engages in any activity with the intention of improving health, preventing disease, managing conditions, and restoring health.

Encompassing a broad spectrum of behaviour, self-care includes all health decisions consumers make for themselves and their families to maintain a good level of physical and mental health. These include maintaining physical fitness and good health to preventing disease or managing conditions, using self-medication to treat and prevent illness, and managing one’s health after discharge from tertiary health care.