PASS S3 - Lay beliefs and long term conditions Flashcards
What are lay beliefs?
How people understand and make sense of health and illness
Constructed by people with no specialised knowledge
Socially embedded
What is the negative definition of health?
Health equates to the absence of illness
What is the functional definition of health?
Health is the ability to do certain things
What is the positive definition of health?
Health is a state of wellbeing and fitness
What is health behaviour?
Activity undertaken 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, inc. seeking formal help and action of person as patient
What influences illness behaviour?
Culture Extent to which symptoms disrupt life Frequency and persistence of symptoms Tolerance threshold Lay referral
What is the illness iceberg?
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
What is the lay referral system?
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
Why is lay referral important?
Helps you to understand:
- why people may have delayed in seeking help
- your role as a doctor in health
- use of alternative medicines
What are LTCs?
Long term conditions
Controlled but not cured
Increase with ageing population but not only older people live with LTCs
Name the 5 different types of work of LTCs
Illness work Everyday life work Emotional work Biographical work Identity work
Explain illness work
Getting a diagnosis
Managing the symptoms
Self-management
Explain everyday life work
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
Explain emotional work
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)
Explain biographical work
Loss of self
Biographical disruption
Reconstruction of biography
Explain identity work
Different conditions carry different connotations
Affects how people see themselves and how others see them
STIGMA
Work to maintain an acceptable identity
Define discreditable stigma
Not immediately visible but if found out may face stigma
eg. mental illness or HIV+
Define discredited stigma
A visible or well known quality which can set you apart
eg. physical disability
Define enacted stigma
The real experience of prejudice, discrimination or disadvantage due to a condition
Define felt stigma
Fear of enacted stigma
Encompasses a feeling of shame
