Tutorial 2 - What is Health? Flashcards
What are three important skills in being a GP and why?
Communication - listening + responding to patients concerns and preferences
Partnership - respect patients right to reach decisions with you about their treatment and care
Teamwork - working effectively with colleagues to deliver safe patient care
What is the WHO definition of health?
A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity
What is statistical normality?
The normal distribution
What is cultural normality?
Depends on expectations and standards of the society
Why is it important to consider cultural norms?
Patient disengages if they feel you are not aware of their cultural normality and willing to be realistic about it
Why do some patients feel healthy?
Individual attitudes and expectations - lots of my friends are healthy
What are two different ways being healthy is defined?
Official or professional definitions - so called scientific view of health (health is the absence of disease/illness)
Popular or lay definitions
What are the Seedhouse 5 major characteristics which define positive ideas about health?
1) Health as an ideal state
2) Health as physical and mental fitness
3) Health as a commodity
4) Health as personal strength or ability
5) Health as the basis for personal potential
What are the lay beliefs of being healthy?
Absence of disease
Physical fitness
Functional ability
Lay health beliefs - what do older people focus more on?
Concentrate more on functional ability
Younger people tended to speak of health in terms of physical strength and fitness
Four factors that may influence lay beliefs about health
Age
Gender
Social class
Culture
How does social class influence lay beliefs about health?
People living on difficult economic and social circumstances regard health as functional - the ability to be productive, to cope and take care of others
Women of higher social or educational qualification have a more multidimensional view of health
How does gender influence lay beliefs about health?
Men and women appear to think about health differently
Women may find the concept of health more interesting
Women include a social aspect to health
How does cultural affect lay beliefs about health?
Caucasian and Afro-Caribbean patients attached different meanings to “High blood pressure”
Afro-Caribbean patients
Tended to regard it as more“normal” and not as an increased risk of stroke/heart attack
were less likely to take their medication
- therefore there is a different interpretation of a diagnosis and a difference in compliance to medication
What is tricky about health?
We may judge people who consider themselves healthy, and our point of view may not agree with theirs - health is conceived differently depending on whether you are a professional or not, where you live, what circumstances you find yourself living in, how old you are and whether you are a man or a woman
