PASS S3 - Lay beliefs and long term conditions

Question 1

What are lay beliefs?

Answer 1

How people understand and make sense of health and illness
Constructed by people with no specialised knowledge
Socially embedded

Question 2

What is the negative definition of health?

Answer 2

Health equates to the absence of illness

Question 3

What is the functional definition of health?

Answer 3

Health is the ability to do certain things

Question 4

What is the positive definition of health?

Answer 4

Health is a state of wellbeing and fitness

Question 5

What is health behaviour?

Answer 5

Activity undertaken for purpose of maintaining health and preventing illness

Question 6

What is illness behaviour?

Answer 6

Activity of ill person to define illness and seek solution

Question 7

What is sick role behaviour?

Answer 7

Formal response to symptoms, inc. seeking formal help and action of person as patient

Question 8

What influences illness behaviour?

Answer 8

Culture
Extent to which symptoms disrupt life
Frequency and persistence of symptoms 
Tolerance threshold
Lay referral

Question 9

What is the illness iceberg?

Answer 9

Most symptoms never get to a doctor
Almost half of respondents did nothing
35% of symptoms resulted in use of lay-care, OTC medicine
12% of symptoms led to a consultation with a primary care health professional

Question 10

What is the lay referral system?

Answer 10

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

Question 11

Why is lay referral important?

Answer 11

Helps you to understand:

• why people may have delayed in seeking help
• your role as a doctor in health
• use of alternative medicines

Question 12

What are LTCs?

Answer 12

Long term conditions
Controlled but not cured
Increase with ageing population but not only older people live with LTCs

Question 13

Name the 5 different types of work of LTCs

Answer 13

Illness work
Everyday life work
Emotional work
Biographical work
Identity work

Question 14

Explain illness work

Answer 14

Getting a diagnosis
Managing the symptoms
Self-management

Question 15

Explain everyday life work

Answer 15

Coping and strategic management
coping: the cognitive processes involved with dealing with illness
strategy: actions and processes involved in managing the condition and its impact
Normalisation: try and keep pre-illness lifestyle and identity intact/redesignate your new life as normal life

Question 16

Explain emotional work

Answer 16

Work that people do to protect the emotional wellbeing of others
May involve downplaying pain or other symptoms
Presenting ‘cheery self’
Impact of role: become dependent (feeling of uselessness)

Question 17

Explain biographical work

Answer 17

Loss of self
Biographical disruption
Reconstruction of biography

Question 18

Explain identity work

Answer 18

Different conditions carry different connotations
Affects how people see themselves and how others see them
STIGMA
Work to maintain an acceptable identity

Question 19

Define discreditable stigma

Answer 19

Not immediately visible but if found out may face stigma

eg. mental illness or HIV+

Question 20

Define discredited stigma

Answer 20

A visible or well known quality which can set you apart

eg. physical disability

Question 21

Define enacted stigma

Answer 21

The real experience of prejudice, discrimination or disadvantage due to a condition

Question 22

Define felt stigma

Answer 22

Fear of enacted stigma

Encompasses a feeling of shame