Session 4: Lay beliefs and long term conditions

Question 1

Describe evidence on lay beliefs about health and illness and their relevance to heatlh-related behaviour and use of services

Question 2

Describe the nature of lay beliefs

Answer 2

1. Comple and sophisticated
2. Draw on cultural, social, and personal knowledge and experience and own biography
3. Medical information may be rejected if incompatible with competing ideas which people think there is good evidence for

Question 3

What are some perceptions of health

Answer 3

1. Negative definition: health equates to absence of illness, common in lower socioeconomic groups
2. Functional definition: health is the ability to do certain things( even if illness is present), common in older people
3. Positive definition: health is a state of wellbeing and fitness, can be achieved, common in higher socioeconomic groups

Question 4

Define illness behaviour

Answer 4

activity of ill person to define illness and seek solution

Question 5

What influences illness behaviour?

Answer 5

1. Culture: stoical attiude
2. Visibility of symptoms
3. Extent to which symptoms disrupt life
4. Frequency and persistence of symptoms
5. Tolerance threshold
6. Information and understanding: knowing what the red flags are
7. Availability of resources: registered with GP?
8. Lay referral

Question 6

Why do people of higher social class generally have a more prositve definition of health