Lecture 7: Sociology Of Health & Illness Flashcards
What is disease?
Biologically defined: the practitioner’s perspective.
The illness seen in terms of a theory of disorder
What is sickness?
Social & cultural conceptions of this condition.
These affect how patient reacts.
Also covers what is considered a disorder suitable for medical treatment
What is Illness?
A person’s subjective experience of their symptoms
What the patient brings to the doctor
Examples of disease without illness or sickness
Hypertension
HIV-positive status
A suspect cervical smear
Examples of illness without disease or sickness
Hypochondria
Malingering
Examples of sickness without disease or illness
Racism
Prejudice
Violence
What is Illness behaviour?
The varying ways individuals respond to bodily indications, how they monitor internal states, define and interpret symptoms, make attributions, take remedial actions and utilise various sources of formal and informal care
What are the 10 factors that influence illness behaviour?
1.Visibility, recognisability, perceived salience of signs and
symptoms
- The extent to which the symptoms are perceived as serious
- The extent to which symptoms disrupt family, work and other social activities
- The frequency of the appearance of the signs and symptoms, their persistence, or their frequency or recurrence
5.The tolerance threshold of those who are exposed to and
evaluate the signs and symptoms
- Available information, knowledge and cultural assumptions and understandings of the evaluator
- Basic needs that lead to denial
- Needs competing with illness responses
- Competing possible interpretations that can be assigned to the symptoms once they are recognised
- Availability of treatment resources, physical proximity, and psychological and monetary cost of taking action (not only physical distance and costs of time, money and effort but also such costs as stigma, social distance and feelings of humiliation)
What are the possible Triggers to a consultation?
(1) the occurrence of an interpersonal crisis (e.g. a death in the family)
(2) the perceived interference with social or personal relations
(3) Sanctioning (pressure from others to consult)
(4) the perceived interference with vocational or physical activity
(5) a kind of temporalizing of symptomatology (the setting of a deadline, e.g. ‘If I feel the same way on Monday…’ or ‘If I have another turn…’)
Social expectations of the Sick role
●Withdrawing from normal social roles threatens the overall functioning of society – a form of deviance
●Illness prevents people from effectively performing their social role
●Claiming to be ill has the potential to be misused to excuse oneself from social responsibilities
●Medicine provides a mechanism of the social system for coping with illness of its members by legitimating the adoption of the sick role and temporary withdrawal from responsibilities
●The sick role involves rights and obligations for both patient
What are the obligations and privileges of the patient as a sick role?
1- Must want to get well as quickly as possible
2- should seek professional medical advice am co-operate with the doctor
3- allowed to shed some normal activities and responsibilities
4- Regarded as being in need of care and unable to get better by his or her own decisions and will
What is Sociology?
Sociology is the study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behaviour. Sociologists investigate the structure of groups, organizations, and societies, and how people interact within these contexts.
What is the Hierarchy of system in the Biopsychosocial model?
- Society
- Culture
- Community
- Family
- Person
- Organs / organ system
- Tissues
- Cells
- Genes
- Molecules
What is a Social Structure?
Is a result of the way a society is organised and is also part of its functioning
What is Culture?
The way of life including (often tacitly held) knowledge, customs, norms, behaviours, laws and beliefs, which characterise a people or group
