 Change and continuity in patient theories of illness: The case of epilepsyK. U. Kirchgässler Social Science & Medicine, 1990, vol. 30, issue 12, 1313-1318 Abstract: Lay concepts of health and illness have attracted much interest in medical sociology. Empirical research has shown that lay theories present coherent views of health and illness which are often not compatible with medical concepts, but influenced by them. Nevertheless, knowledge on the nature of medical influence on individual patient theories over time is scarce. This paper explores this issue by empirically analysing the illness theories of patients with epilepsy. In this qualitative study, the classification and description of illness theories is attempted through ideal types which describe theoretically significant properties of patient discourse. Data from a 4-year follow-up are compared with the original classification. While the continiuties in patient theories seem to be primarily due to continuities in the illness careers, the changes in the direction of psychosomatic theories seen in some patients favour the view that patient theories have dynamic structures which are heavily influenced also on the individual level by historical developments in clinical practice. Date: 1990 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:30:y:1990:i:12:p:1313-1318 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier |
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