(3) Lay Beliefs Flashcards
What are lay beliefs?
- how people understand health/illness
- no specialist knowledge
- based on cultural, social, personal knowledge
What is a negative definition of health?
Health = absence of illness
What is a functional definition of health?
Health = ability to do certain things (e.g. work)
What is a positive definition of health?
Health = state of wellbeing and fitness
What are the 2 issues with lay epidemiology?
(1) understand why/how illness happens
(2) why it happened to one person and not another
\/
Observe and generate hypotheses
Why do lay people believe illness won’t happen to them?
- system is fallible
- someone with an unhealthy lifestyle who lives to an old age
- ‘last person you would expect’
- randomness and fate
What are the influences of lay beliefs on behaviour?
Health behaviour = activity undertaken to maintain health and prevent illness
Illness behaviour = activity of ill person to define illness and seek solution
Sick role behaviour = seeking formal/medical help in response to symptoms (acting as a patient)
What is a symptom/illness iceberg?
Most symptoms never get to a doctor
What influences illness behaviour?
Culture Visibility or salience of symptoms Extent to which symptoms disrupt normal life Frequency and persistence of symptoms Tolerance threshold Information and understanding Availability of resources Lay referral
What is lay referral?
Chain of advice seeking contacts which the sick make with other lay people prior to - or instead of - seeking help from health care professionals
Why is lay referral important
Helps you understand:
- why people delay seeking help
- how, why, when people consult a doctor
- your role as a doctor in their health
Why do lay people do/not adhere to treatment?
“Deniers and distancers”
“Acceptors”
“Pragmatists”
