Health and Sickness:the Choice of Treatment
- Author:
Wadsworth
W. J. H. Butterfield, R. Blaney Tavistock Publications, ?2.00 In looking at the complex relationship between the demand and the need for medical care, the use of the services ? reflecting human response to stress and disease ? is of crucial importance.
This book is a clear description with detailed findings of a carefully constructed study carried out in South London. It casts some light on the use of the medical services by investigating the patients’ own concept of their state of health and the steps they have taken to deal with their complaints.
Many interesting facts are produced: only 5% of the population consider themselves free from complaints and of the remainder, 76% had taken some form of action ? 60% resorting to self-medication.
The study found that the difference between those who consulted their doctor and those who did not could not be explained by such variables as age, sex, social class, marital status, employment status, family size and so on. It appeared rather to relate to the nature of the complaint and how the patient viewed his own illness.
Many questions are raised, such as problems of early diagnosis, the significance of ‘trivial’ symptoms and the dangers of self-medication.
One may not agree with all the interpretations of the findings, but this is a book that provokes much thought and makes a definite contribution to the problem of the use of medical care. L. I. Zander
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