Managing illness Flashcards
What is the department of healths definition of self-care?
includes the actions people take for themselves, their children and their families to stay fit and maintain good physical and mental health, meet social and psychological needs, prevent illness or accidents, care for minor ailments and long-term conditions, and maintain health and well-being after an acute illness or discharge from hospital
What are the 4 functions why people do self manage?
Restorative: to alleviate illness- what the patient does. e.g. patient takes symptoms to a HCP and has taken their advice to restore health
Reactive: to alleviate symptoms - tries to do something to treat symptoms before going to seek help from a HCP
Preventative: to prevent disease - realising because of family history/job/lifestyle they might be at higher risk of a specific condition and therefore you would do something about it. Larger differences between middle and low class
Regulatory: to regulate body processes - linked to folk sector
How is deferred ratification related to the preventative aspect of the 4 functions of self-care?
an individual is happy to undergo hardship now to reap the reward in the future= this is more likely to occur in the middle class
What is crawford analysis of the middle class and healthism?
“the representation of good health as a personal choice…the maintenance of good health is an individual’s responsibility”
What is Greenhaigh and Wessely’s analysis of the middle class and healthism?
“conspicuous consumption” - meaning it is something you talk about and tell others about e.g. “clean eating”= not drinking alcohol, taking vitamins, doing yoga
What is healthism?
it is prevalent in newspaper health pages nowadays with the idea of health being your responsibility
- food diets= “vegan” “vegetarian”
What were Greenhaigh & Wessely’s demographic, attitudinal and behavioural characteristics of healthism?
1) typically young or middle aged from university educated, information rich, semi-professional background
2) vocal and articulate (aware of, and keen to exercise, citizen and patient’s rights)
3) health aware and enthusiastic in seeking info about health and illness via books, magazines, internet
4) Generally makes positive lifestyle choices e.g. regular exercise, diet aligns approximately with official recommendations, tends to avoid alcohol, though a surprising proportion smoke
5) consumes food supplements, alternative medicines, all of which are attributed “natural” and “holistic” qualities and also frequently “detox” by diet, food supplementation or other methods
6) concerned about “unnatural” substances esp. when there is a civil liberties dimension (fluoridation of water, mass vaccination)
7) particular fear of small, unseen, insidious threats capable of penetrating the body’s boundaries- hence fear of additives
8) Associates science/medicine with danger rather than safety- well aware of crises such as MMR, BSE
9) exercises a high degree of consumer choice (seeks multiple opinions) often in private sector
What has hugely influenced peoples curiosity about healthism?
the use of google - year on year google searches on health increase
- causes people to self-diagnose- increase year on year
What does the term DIY doctor mean?
Nowadays people are able to measure aspects of their health at home such as blood pressure monitoring, fit bits
What are some of the benefits of measuring aspects of your health at home ?
It can be easier than going to the doctor and may demonstrate a more representative result as you are carrying out your daily activities
For sexual health tests, it can be less embarrassing for the individual
Can make you more conscious about your health (this could also be seen as detrimental)
Helps to alert people earlier about a potential damaging risk factor - important for asymptomatic conditions
Additionally if you have a test at the doctors, it will be put into your notes whereas at home nobody else has to know. This can be important in terms of applying for mortgages and insurance
What could be a some of the disadvantages of monitoring health at home?
You may not be carrying out the test correctly which could cause invalid results which may end up influencing your health
May cause you to start taking alternative medications, which your doctor is unaware of and they could interact with any other medications you are taking
You may not understand the results of the monitoring and interpret it incorrectly
You may start to become obsessed with the results and this can be psychologically quite damaging
What is changing in terms of drugs?
They are becoming more accessible over the counter
- people are being encouraged to take over the counter statins to reduce risk of clotting
What are the advantages of online pharmacies?
Good if you don’t want to see the doctor or don’t have time to book an appointment
What are the disadvantages of online pharmacies?
drug to drug interactions e;.g st.johns wart for depression has many drug to drug interactions
may have incorrect diagnosis
may take the drugs incorrectly
could be any drug, you’ve got no idea whats in it
What factors contribute to self-care?
- symptom management (clinical iceberg)
- definitions of health and illness
- healthism/consumerism
- body maintenance
- changing beliefs about medical power and expertise - doctors do make mistakes and modern drugs do causes terrible side effects sometimes
- internet use is highly influential
- technology (self-testing kits)
- over the counter drugs / online pharmacies
- increase in the number of people with chronic diseases- co-morbidities
- expert patients
- patient choice/empowerment
- need to reduce NHS cost - a cynic would say the responsibility should be put onto the individual so they are not a burden on the NHS
