Lay Beliefs Flashcards
What are lay beliefs?
How people understand health and illness
Constructed by people with no specialised knowledge
Where do people get information for lay beliefs?
Cultural
Social
Person knowledge
What are the three perceptions of health?
Negative definition
Function definition
Positive definition
What is a negative definition of health?
Health equates to absence of illness
What is a function definition of health?
Health is the ability to do certain things
What is a positive definition of health?
Health is a state of wellbeing and fitness
What are the two distinct issues with lay epidemiology?
Understanding why and how illnesses happen
Why illnesses happen to a particular person at a particular time
What are the three influences of lay belief on behaviours?
Health
Illness
Sick role
What does health behaviour mean?
Activity undertaken fro purpose of maintaining health and preventing illness
What does illness behaviour mean?
Activity of an ill person to understand their illness and seek solution
What does sick role behaviour mean?
Formal response to symptoms
Like getting help and as a patient
What influences illness behaviour?
(An ill person researches their illness and seeks a solution)
Culture
Visibility of symptoms
Extent that their illness disrupts their life
Lay referral
Availability of resources
What is lay referral?
Patients speaking to one another before seeking help
What is a lay referral system?
A chain of advice seeking
In which sick people speak to other lay people prior to seeking help from healthcare professionals
What does lay referral help to understand?
Why people delay seeking help
How when and why people consult a doctor
Use of alternative medication
What are the five types of work in the sociological theory of LTCs (long term conditions)?
Illness
Everyday life
Emotional
Biographical
Identity
What two things do you manage in illness work?
The period leading up to getting the diagnosis
Symptoms - dealing with physical manifestations of illness and bodily changes.
Explain the type of management in everyday life work
What do you try and maintain?
Coping and strategic management:
Coping (dealing with illness)
Strategy (actions and processes involved in managing condition and impacts)
Normalisation
What does normalisation mean in everyday Iife work?
Trying to keep pre-illness lifestyle and identity intact or redesignate your new life as
‘normal life’
Explain emotional work?
What may you do?
Managing one’s emotions and others
Presenting as cheery self (downplaying pain or other symptoms)
Explain why would commit to biographical work
Loss of self: former self images crumbles away without simultaneous development of equally
valued new ones
Explain identity work
Work to maintain an acceptable identity
Different conditions carry different connotations Consequence of actual and imagined reaction of others
Stigma
What are the four types of stigma (in identity work)?
Discreditable
Discredited
Enacted
Felt
What is discreditable stigma?
Give an example
Not visible - but if found out people may treat you differently
Mental illness
