concept of man, health, and illness

• Man's four major (unique) attributes

  • Capacity to think – we can rationalize, grasp abstract ideas
  • Family formation – we can form/forge relationships
  • Tendency to seek and maintain territory – we can know what is rightfully ours
  • Ability to use verbal symbols as language – we are able to talk with sense and we know what we are saying
• Two approaches in studying man

  • Atomistic approach – viewing MAN as tissue, cell, organism
  • Holistic approach – viewing MAN as an organism with interrelated parts; physical emotional, mental, and spiritual
• Complete physical, mental, social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmityComplete physical, mental, social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity

  health
• Health


  • Ability to maintain normal roles
  • Developmental and behavioral potential is realized to the fullest extent possible
  • String toward optimal functioning
  • Individual perception

  
• Aspects of health

  • Self-responsibility
  • Ultimate goal
  • Dynamic, growing process
  • Daily decision making in areas of nutrition, stress management, physical fitness, preventive health care, and emotional health
  • Whole being of the individual
• Health-related activities

  • Health Education
  • Health Maintenance
  • Health Promotion
  • Illness Prevention
  • Restorative and Rehabilitative Care
• Restorative care


  Helps maintain physical activities to perform ADL (activities of daily living)
• Rehabilitative care


  Restore function after an illness
• Subordinate System


  Man whose member of a family; man can be influenced by members of the community
• Superordinate System


  Man whose inside the society/community
• Man (Roy)


  An open system
• Man (Orem)


  A unit who can be viewed as functioning biologically, symbolically, and socially and who initiates and performs self-care activities on her own behalf in maintaining life, well-being
• Types of man

  • Man is like all man
  • Man is like some man
  • Man is no other man
• Man

  A BioPsychosocial and spiritual being (Roy)
• Types of man

  • Man is like all man
  • Man is no other man
• Aspects of man

  • Environmental
  • Physical
• Family and cultural beliefs


  • Family passes on patterns of daily living and lifestyle to offspring
  • Culture and social interactions also influence how a person perceives, experiences, and copes with health and illness
  • Cultural rules, values and beliefs give people a sense of being stable and able to predict outcomes
• Social support networks


  • Having a support network (family, friends, or a confidant) and job satisfaction helps people avoid illness
  • People with inadequate support networks sometimes allow themselves to become increasingly ill before confirming the illness and seeking therapy
  • Provides motivation for an ill person to be well again
• Health belief models


  • Help determine whether an individual is likely to participate in disease prevention and health promotion activities
  • Useful tools in developing programs for helping people with healthier lifestyles and more positive attitudes toward preventive health measures
• Rosenstock and Becker's health belief models

  • Based on the assumption that health-related action depends on the simultaneous occurrence of three factors: 1) sufficient motivation to make health issues be viewed as important, 2) belief that one is vulnerable to a serious health problem or its consequences, and 3) belief that following a particular health recommendation would be beneficial
• Perceived susceptibility


  Awareness of personal high risk lifestyle behaviors also increase perceived susceptibility
• Perceived seriousness


  Perception of the individual, does the illness cause death or have serious consequences?
• Perceived threat

  Combination of the first two perception that helps determine the total perceived threat of an illness to an individual
• Modifying factors

  • Demographic variables – include age, sex, race, and ethnicity
  • Sociopsychological variables – social pressure or influence from peers or other reference groups; expectations of others may motivate people
  • Structural variables – knowledge about target disease and prior contact with it are structural variables that are presumed to influence preventive behavior
  • Cues to action – can either be internal or external; these are the reasons why we do things
• Perceived benefits of the action


  In order to prevent lung cancer, one refrains from smoking, and to maintain weight, one eats nutritious foods and avoids snacking
• Perceived barriers of the action


  Barriers that hinder you to do a health behavior that is beneficial, e.g. financial instability; cost/inconvenience
• Adherence


  Extent to which an individual's behavior coincides with medical or health advice
• Factors influencing adherence


  • Client motivation to become well
  • Degree of lifestyle change necessary
  • Perceived severity of the health care problem
  • Value placed on reducing the threat of illness
  • Ability to understand and perform specific behaviors
  • Degree of inconvenience of the illness itself or of the regimens
  • Beliefs that the prescribed therapy or regimen will or will not help
  • Complexity, side effects, and duration of the proposed therapy
  • Cultural heritage, beliefs, or practices that support or conflict with the regimen
  • Degree of satisfaction and quality and type of relationship with the health care providers
  • Overall cost of therapy
• Illness


  • A highly personal state; deviation from one's healthy state
  • Person's physical, emotional, intellectual, social, developmental, or spiritual functioning is diminished
  • NOT synonymous with disease
  • May or not may not be related to disease
  • Only person can say he or she is ill (highly subjective)
• Stages of illness

  • Denial – refusing to acknowledge the symptoms
  • Acceptance – seeks professionals help regarding health
  • Recovery – patient goes through of resolving the effects of illness
• Disease


  • Alteration in body function
  • A reduction of capacities or a shortening of the normal life span
  • Causation of disease is called etiology
• Classification of illness and disease

  • Acute illness – Characterized by the symptoms or relatively short duration; Symptoms often appear abruptly, subside quickly; May or not may not require intervention by health care professionals; Most people return to normal level of wellness
  • Chronic illness – Lasts for an extended period, usually 6 months or longer; Usually has a slow onset; Often have periods of remissions (when the symptoms disappear ) and exacerbations (when the symptoms reappear); Care includes promoting independence, sense of control, and wellness; Learn how to live with physical limitations and discomfort
• Illness behaviors


  A coping mechanism that involves ways individuals describe, monitor, and interpret their symptoms; How people behave when they are ill is highly individualized and affected by many variables, such as age, sex, occupation, socioeconomic status, religion, ethnic origin, psychological stability, personality, education, and modes of coping
• Parson's four aspects of the sick role


  • RIGHTS: 1) Client are not held responsible for their condition; 2) Clients are excused from certain social roles and tasks
  • OBLIGATION: 3) Client are obligated to try to get well as quickly as responsible; 4) Client or their families are obligated to seek competent help
• Theories of disease causation

  • Miasma theory
  • Germ theory
  • Epidemiological triangle
  • Web of causation
  • The theory of general susceptibility
  • The socio-environmental approach
• Miasma theory


  Miasma was considered to be a poisonous vapor or mist filled with particles from decomposed matter (miasmata) that caused illnesses; As a result, the sanitary movement era focused on disease prevention (causes of diseases in population) and the health needs of the poor population
• Germ theory


  Health problems were believed to be the product of living organisms which entered the body through food, water, air or the bites of insects or animals; It was believed that each disease has a single and a specific cause (mono-causal approach); Medical practice became devoted to the destruction or eradication of the agent from individuals already affected
• Epidemiological triangle


  Disease is the result of an interaction between agent, host and the environment; Diseases can be prevented by modifying factors which influence exposure and susceptibility
• Web of causation


  Disorders are developed through complex interaction of many factors, which may be biophysical, social or psychological and may promote or inhibit the disease at more than one point in the causal process
• Epidemiological triangle


  Theory that exposure to an agent does not necessarily lead to disease, but disease is the result of an interaction between agent, host and the environment