How Culture and Medical Profession Influence Health Outcomes - Essay Example

Why health inequalities persist in society and the extent culture and medical profession influence health outcomes Sociology and Health Name: Instructor: Date of Submission: Why health inequalities persist in society and the extent culture and medical profession influence health outcomes Good Health is a crucial requisite of any human being. Margereson (2009) says that the perception of living health is cohabiting in good mental, physical, and spiritual conditions. In this setting, anything that contravenes the states of good health such as disease, stress, and physical injuries needs prevention. Therefore, countries have the mandate to provide high standard health care to its citizens, a quest that has been intertwined by the existence of social stratification in the society. Good health is an individual initiative that starts with maintaining high standards of hygiene, adhering to proper diet and avoiding stress (Lupton & Najman, 1995, 79). On the other hand, inequality in the health care provision is eminent in United Kingdom (UK) because of the presence of high, middle, and lower social classes. Henningsen explained that these classes and cultural practice influences the type of infection an individual suffers from and the cost of seeking treatment. Consequently, medical sociology is a critical branch of sociology that clarifies health care provision, using models such as biomedical. Evidently, everybody in the society is not equal economically, a factor that has introduced the disparity among UK residents in various parts of the country. Although it is a sad reality, it lives in the community and should be handled the way it is. Curbing health issues begin at the diagnosis stage. Margereson reports that residences of the UK, who live in her poorest regions are falling victim of diseases such as cancer since they cannot afford early diagnosis tests. Not only does the economic gap, promote inequality in health care provision, but also the sexual orientation. According to Henningsen (2011), a report done by one of the media organizations indicated that people have on several occasions suffered victimization when they seek medical attention. Further, Henningsen explained that schizophrenia patients also suffer when they are taken to health facilities, since no health personnel is often willing to get in touch with such patients due to their mental status. Another cause of variation in health care provision is the politics of the day. Different people with different cultures in the UK have a perception about ill- health, causes and treatment. The culture of the elite in the society believes that the sources of ill-health are disease-transmitting agents such as virus, bacteria, and protozoa. Another group constituting the manual laborers individuals understands that an infection by the disease is because of negligence of the victim. While the religious believers perceive that a disease is a form of punishment by God to wrong doers. For the elite in a higher social class, they believe in the culture of seeking medical attention anytime they suffer illness. They also believe in being treated by qualified medical professionals. Regardless of the ability to afford any treatment, they also live an inferior lifestyle. Unlike those in low social class who believe in keeping fit through exercise, the elite has a culture where others complete most tasks meant for them. It is that their culture that is a facilitator of the high number of chronic diseases registered more so the likes of blood pressure and dietetics. Medical experts ought to advise a patient on the lifestyle they should live. Research suggests that people narrow down their perceptions about illness to five categories or themes. These categories or themes together create a people’s overall perception of illness and thus how they adjust to or treat the disease. They include identity, cause, timeline, consequences, and, Control or Cure (Creed et al., 2010, 43). Together, these components of illness perceptions constitute the Self-Regulatory Model, also known as the Illness Perceptions Model, the Illness Representations Model, and the Common Sense Model. The SRM holds that illness perceptions assist people in forming ‘common sense’ knowledge about the symptoms, health risks, and other actions necessary to address the disease (Margeresen & Trenoweth, 2009, 110). There is more than enough evidence supporting the SRM. A number of research activities that test the SRM model’s structure have supported the five illness perceptions. Margeresen and Trenoweth challenged the Control/Cure component by distinguishing personal efficacy beliefs and ideas in the anticipated efficacy of medical advice or prescribed treatment. These views are also called self-efficacy and outcome expectancies respectively. Margeresen and Trenoweth’s critique prompted the revision of SRM, which now distinguishes treatment efficacy from self-efficacy within Control/Cure perceptions. The SRM argues that when confronted with a status of health change or a threat to the health, an individual tries to self-regulate for purposes of re-establishing a state of normality. Together, HBM and SRM suggest that the illness perceptions of an individual guide health-related behaviors such as compliance to treatment in order to stabilize their sense of health (Margeresen and Trenoweth, 2009, 116). The premise is that symptoms activate cognitive and emotional representations, with the representations triggering a feedback loop in which the individual forms a perception of the illness based on the symptoms, and then adopts appropriate health behaviors. Following is an assessment of those behaviors’ efficacy. Therefore, rotational appraisal processes inform health practices, including compliance to treatment. The assessment of the illness perceptions of an individual can offer valuable insight into illness and health-related behaviors and outcomes, hence the launch of the Illness Perceptions Questionnaire (Larsen & Lubkin, 2011, 88). This questionnaire was launched to inform the influence of illness perceptions on adaptation to illness and its treatment. Through the useful tool, it has been discovered that illness perceptions can provide explanations to so many health issues, including coping, mood, and compliance with various medical recommendations. One of the areas where illness perceptions have offered greatest utility is the explanation of compliance with medical advice and treatment (Kim & Evangelista, 2010, 105). Compliance, also known as concordance or adherence, has been defined precisely as the extent to which the behavior of the patient matches the prescriber’s agreed recommendations. Another notable compliance is an argument that puts health professionals in an authoritative position (Barry & YuilL, 2003, 40). However, ‘compliance’ acknowledges that the patient has a choice and responsibility for their health and whether they comply with treatment recommendations. ‘Compliance’ also considers the influence of illness perceptions on health behaviors and outcomes (Kim & Evangelista, 2010, 106). The understanding of illness perceptions provides the likelihood of two forms of compliance – intentional, and unintentional. Intentional non-compliance is more influenced by perceptions of illness, and is more problematic and complex as the patient willfully decides not to comply. Such behavior can range from modification of the agreed prescription to total non-compliance (Kim & Evangelista, 2010, 105). In 2003, the World Health Organization approximated that most patients do not adhere to medical prescriptions. The results indicated that between 30% to 50% of medicines prescribed for long-term condition patients were not put into use (Kim & Evangelista, 2010, 105). Therefore, if perceptions of illness can assist in illuminating reasons for non-compliance, efforts to redress the problem need to take center stage. Compliance levels can be explained by the three feedback loop phase whereby the patient first forms a perception of illness, adopts health behaviors that are appropriate, and then appraises these behaviors’ efficacy. If medication is not working or makes a person feel worse through adverse side effects, a person might cease compliance (Kim & Evangelista, 2010, 106). For instance, in cancer’s case, certain radiotherapy symptoms are quite severe that patients stop treatment; their illness perceptions, particularly around Control/Cure have offered them a common sense reason of stopping compliance. This problem is frequent in terms of medication compliance since certain illnesses are rooted on medication, hence challenging the common sense assumptions of symptomatic illness. Other dimensions of illness perceptions play a role too. For example, a person perceiving his or her illness to be severe and lifelong (timeline) can adjust to medical advice efficiently regardless of the side effects (Kim & Evangelista, 2010, 108). Al-Sagarat and others conducted meta-analysis studies to examine the relationship between compliance and disease severity (Consequences). In the studies, there was a significant relationship between compliance and supposed severity of illness (p Read More