I'm not sure if this answers your question, but in a study that I was
working on, we used a visual analog to meaure the mother's perception of her
own health and her child's health. The mother was simply asked to place a
mark on a straight line --where the right end was said to be excellent
health, and the left end was said to be very poor health. She did this for
both herself and her child.
We wanted to see how good an indicator the visual analog was for child's
health and so we correlated the child's visual health analog to the child's
anthropometric score (standardized z-score for height-for-age) and found a
strong correlation. Perhaps, in your situation, you can find some objective
measure of the patient's to compare both subjective measures to in order to
confirm or rule out that what you are observing is a psycosocial effect?
Carol Levin
Senior Program Officer/Health Economist
PATH
4 Nickerson St.
Suite 300
Seattle, WA 98109-1699
Tel. (206) 285-3500
Fax: (206) 285-6619
Email: [log in to unmask]
USA
-----Original Message-----
From: Albert A. OKUNADE [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2001 11:14 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Psycosocial costs
Hi-
Perhaps the question of HOW MUCH 'less than perfect' is more important
than 'less than perfect'. Obviously, 'rationality' is bounded, and may
in fact be impaired when one is ill. How much one is able to assess own
health status can be clouded by the specific circumstance; that is, by
the degree or intensity of illness, prior medical knowledge, patient's
age, education, ... . Take the case of a do-it-yourselfer, whose toes
are accidentally damaged (not completely amputated) in a lawn mowing
activity in own yard. His initial reaction may be a belief in the
complete loss of 2 fingers for ever. Later, this is likely revised as
treatments begin and patient reassured by the attending surgeon that
full use of the fingers will be in order eventually. Now, it also
matters who the care taker is. If not a medical professional, the
assessment of the state of an ill health may be worse than that made by
a professional health personnel.....
For literature, you may wish to check with Health/Medical or Nursing
Psychology literature....
Good luck!
Prof. Albert A. Okunade
Department of Economics, Rm. 450BB
The FCBE
University of Memphis
Memphis, TN 38152
tel: (901) 678-2672; fax: (901) 678-2685
----- Original Message -----
From: Frederick Mugisha <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thursday, August 16, 2001 1:56 am
Subject: Psycosocial costs
> Dear all,
> When a person is ill, he/she ranks his/her health status as less than
> perfect. But a person who takes care of him/her does so as well.
> Can one say
> this a reflection of pycosocial costs of illness? Does anyone have
> an idea
> of the literature one could read? Thanks
> Frederick
>
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