The social course of epilepsy: Chronic illness as social experience in interior China

Arthur Kleinman, Wen-Zhi Wang, Shi-Chuo Li, Xue-Ming Cheng, Xiu-Ying Dai, Kun-Tun Li and Joan Kleinman

Social Science & Medicine, 1995, vol. 40, issue 10, 1319-1330

Abstract: Findings are reported from a collaborative research project on the experience of epilepsy and treatment among patients and family members in Shanxi and Ningxia Provinces in China. Family, marriage, financial and moral consequences of the social experience of epilepsy support the conceptualization of chronic illness as possessing a social course. Beyond traditional concern with stigma, application of concepts of delegitimation, sociosomatic processes, coping as resistance, contestation in the evaluation of efficacy and compliance, and the cultural ontology of suffering illustrate other ways that social theory is useful in research on chronic illness and disability.

Keywords: epilepsy; China; disability; suffering (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1995
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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