A comparison of professionals' and patients' understanding of asthma: evidence of emerging dualities?

Citation
Kg. Sweeney et al., A comparison of professionals' and patients' understanding of asthma: evidence of emerging dualities?, J MED ETHIC, 27(1), 2001, pp. 20-25
Citations number
32
Language
INGLESE
art.tipo
Article
Categorie Soggetti
Public Health & Health Care Science","Health Care Sciences & Services
Journal title
JOURNAL OF MEDICAL ETHICS
ISSN journal
0306-6800 → ACNP
Volume
27
Issue
1
Year of publication
2001
Supplement
S
Pages
20 - 25
Database
ISI
SICI code
0306-6800(200106)27:1<20:ACOPAP>2.0.ZU;2-8
Abstract
Despite an increase in the provision of services to patients with asthma, m orbidity from the disease remains high. Recent research (outside asthma) ha s raised the possibility that patients may develop a conceptualisation of i llnesses which is not entirely compatible with the prevailing biomedical vi ew. This paper compares the way in which health care professionals and pati ents with asthma described various aspects of the illness, using an approac h which considered the type of knowledge which might be used to construct t he respective conceptualisations of asthma. A qualitative Method is empliye d, using focus groups. Eight focus groups were convened,four of professiona ls and four of patients with asthma. Following the initial data analysis, t he results were reviewed linguistically, with particular attention to the u se of metaphor: The health care professionals and patients participating in this study agre ed broadly in their explanations of the aetiology and drug treatment of ast hma. The data suggest lack of congruence in the development of treatment st rategies and locus of control. Health care professionals and patients in th is study used linguistically different metaphors to represent the disease: the former more frequently used metaphors evoking on-going processes, the l atter visualising the chest (in their use of metaphor as a static container , emptying and filling throughout the course of the disease. Two commentari es from philosophical and anthropological literature are considered in orde r to offer theoretical accounts relevant to this interpretation. The data s uggest an emerging duality in the approach to treatment plans, in the roles played by professionals and patients with asthma, and in the different typ es of knowledge used by professionals and patients to construct their respe ctive working models of asthma.