What is health?
What kind of definition do most people have of health?
A positive definition that's not just the absence of disease.
What factors affect definitions of health?
Age and Cultural and Historical factors.
How does pregnancy show the variations in concepts of health?
As in western society people go to the doctors for confirmation of pregnancy and have babies in hospitals, why would they do this if pregnancy is normal? This is medicalization of normal human experience/behavior.
What comes under professional views of health and illness?
Biomedical view/psychiatry and biopsychosocial view/health psychology.
How does smoking show variations in concepts of health?
Changes over time whether smoking is a desirable behavior.
What did Eiser et al. (1983) find about children of different ages and concept of health?
Children ages 6 cannot say what it means to be healthy, but aged 11 they can.
What did Bibace and Walsh (1980) find about age and concept of health?
Children's concept of health differs from adults.
What are health professional's views of health in old ages?
Concepts of health much broader, health relevant even in the presence of chronic illness or pain, adjustment to restrictions and limitations when ill.
What are the general points to keep in mind about defining health?
Diversity of definitions, no definition of health that everyone agrees on, concepts depend on age, culture, gender, socio-economic status and history. Our view of ill people may vary between physical and mental illness.
What are lay experts?
Experts/professionals through experience.
Who found that beliefs about health vary between national/cultural groups?
Furnham, Akanda & Baguma (1999)
What are the consequences of what is defined as normal/health/desirable (think substance abuse)?
Hard to distinguish between whether someone is mad or bad - is someone who abuses drugs a criminal or do they have an illness (substance abuse disorder) - should they be punished or treated.
What is abnormal psychology concerned with?
Health and illness, psychological disorders and a proportion of the population.
According to the World Health Organization, what is health?
Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
What have researchers looked at within health and illness?
How lay people think about health matters compared to professionals, how lay people talk about their experiences of illness, how people think about avoiding disease, how people define health, how people from difference socioeconomic groups view health and health matters (Radley & Billig, 1996)
What can lay notions of illness influence?
How people with illness/disability are treated within their social network and community. Stigma, acceptance, prejudice, tolerance of behaviour
What common sense ideas did Leventhal and colleagues find people have about illness?
Identity - what the disease is Conseuences - short and long term effects Time line - the course of the disease, treatment, recurrence Cause - what factors led to the onset of the disease Cure - how one goes about recovering from it.
What may common sense ideas such as 'I just waited and it went away' affect (Lau and Hartman, 1983)?
Morbidity and mortality.
How can being ill be characterized?
Not feeling normal, specific symptoms, specific illnesses, consequences of illness, time line (e.g. how long symptoms last), absence (e.g. not being healthy)
What stigmatism did Crisp et al. (2000) find people with mental illnesses are subjected to?
Participants suggested these common themes about mentally ill individuals: danger to others, unpredictable, hard to talk to, feel difference, selves to blame, pull self together, not improved if treated, never recover. (Generally rated people with mental illness negatively)
What common findings did Miles suggest after reviewing research of attitude to people with illness.
People with mental illness are perceived by lay public to be: easily recognizable, potentially dangerous and very unpredictable.
How did Lau (1995) find people characterize what being healthy means?
Physiologically/Physically - e.g. having energy or being in good condition. Psychologically - e.g. happy, energetic and feel good Behaviourally - eating and sleeping properly Future consequences - e.g. live longer Absence - e.g. not sick, no disease, no symptoms
What concepts of health and illness are there?
Professional views, Lay views and Lay experts.
What is health psychology concerned with?
Promotion and maintenance of health, improving health care systems and policy, prevention and treatment of illness, causes of illness (e.g. vulnerability/risk factors and protective factors; Matarazzo, 1980) and the whole population.
How do lay notions of illness influence how health and illness are understood in the future?
Socialisation of children, media discourse, the social construct of health and illness, shared implicit meaning of health problems and think about differences between mental and physical illness.
What did Miles (1987) find about attitudes to people with illness?
That all illness is valued negatively. Suggesting mental illnesses seem to elicit special responses of fear and rejection far exceeding intensity responses evoked by physical illness.
What did Crisp et al (2000) suggest stigamatising opinions is not based on?
not based on general lack of knowledge.
What factors did Radley (1994) find affects our ideas about health?
our experience of illness
What comes use lay views of health and illness?
social construction of health/illness
