ASSIGNMENT #7               Due: Monday, 3/27/00

Topic: Seeking and Using Healthcare Services

Answer each of the following questions in a short paragraph (no more than 50-75 words each, for a total of 2-3 pages double-spaced).  The (*) notation after a question means that it relates to material presented only or mostly in class.

1. All the major models of healthcare-seeking behavior emphasize the importance of cognitive factors; select any two such factors (from any one or two different models) and explain how they help us to understand what influences people’s decision to seek healthcare.

2. Those who have proposed stage models of healthcare-seeking behavior believe that they have added something necessary to the non-stage models like HBM and TRA; what have they added, and how do they justify its importance?

3. What is the truest test of whether the different models of healthcare-seeking behavior are valuable, and how well have these models passed that test?

4. Whether people who are ill with various possible symptoms seek medical assistance is partly determined by what four symptom characteristics?

5. Give a specific example to illustrate how one’s personal views, or understanding, of an illness might directly affect whether or not one seeks help.

6. What does it mean to say that being a “good” patient might be a bad idea?

7. A major problem in trying to study patient adherence is measuring whether or not patients have complied; why is this tricky?

8. What do studies about the frequency of patient non-adherence tell us?

9. At least five different types of factors seem to predict adherence/non-adherence; what are they?

10. From studies of methods to improve patient adherence, what can we conclude about the types of approaches that usually work pretty well and the types that tend not to work?

Copyright ©1998 Beverly J. Volicer and Steven F. Tello, UMass Lowell.  You may freely edit these pages  for use in a non-profit, educational setting.  Please include this copyright notice on all pages.