Lay Beliefs Flashcards
What are lay beliefs?
How people make sense of health and illness
Constructed by people with no specialised knowledge
It is not a watered-down version of medicine
It is socially embedded
It is complex - drawn from many different sources
Why are there lay beliefs?
How are lay theories constructed?
Definitions of health and illness vary e.g. cultures, subcultures, communities, generations
They draw on cultural, social and personal knowledge and experience and own biography
Medical knowledge may be rejected if it incompatible with competing ideas for which people consider there is good evidence
Why is important to know about lay beliefs?
What can they affect?
Shows what health means to people
It can impact on behaviour
It can impact on compliance/non-compliance (adherence) with treatment
What are the different perceptions of health?
Negative definition - health equates to the absence of illness
Functional definition - health is the ability to do certain things
Positive definition - health is a state of wellbeing and fitness
Give an example of a common lay belief
Inheritance
There may be a use of different language: genes, genetics, hereditary, inheritance, make-up, family line, blood line
What are the distinct issues with lay beliefs?
Understand why and how illness happens
Why it happened to a particular person
Many of us observe and generate hypotheses from experiences of those around us
Why do people believe it shouldn’t happen to them?
System is fallible
They know someone who lives unhealthily and is old and well
“the last person you would expect”
Randomness and fate
What is health behaviour?
Activity undertaking for purpose of maintaining health and preventing illness
What is illness behaviour?
Activity of ill person to define illness and seek solution
What is sick role behaviour?
Formal response to symptoms, including seeking formal help and action of person as patient
This relates to health behaviour
Why is smoking more prevalent among manual workers?
Higher social class more likely to have a positive definition of health
Incentives of giving up smoking are more evident for groups who could expect to remain healthy - more able to focus on long term investment - quitting = rational choice
Incentives to quit less clear for disadvantaged groups - focus on improving immediate environment, smoking a coping mechanism - smoking = rational choice
What do the population do when they experience symptoms of ill health?
Over a two week period about 75% of the population will experience one or more symptoms of ill health:
- For almost half of all symptoms respondents did
nothing
- 35% of symptoms resulted in use of lay-care, usually
OTC medicine
- 12% of symptoms led to a consultation with a primary
care health professional, usually the GP
Most symptoms never get to a doctor - known as the symptom or illness iceberg
What influences illness behaviour?
Culture - e.g. "stoical" attitude Visibility or prominence of symptoms Extent to which symptoms disrupt life Frequency and persistence of symptoms Tolerance threshold Information and understanding Availability of resources Lay referral
What is lay referral?
The chain of advice-seeking contacts which the sick make with other lay people prior to - or instead of - seeking help from health care professionals
What are the three broad groups of people who don’t take their asthma medication?
Deniers and distancers
Accepters
Pragmatists
