The dimensional structure of medical students' perceptions of diseases

Schmelkin, Liora Pedhazur; Wachtel, Alan B.; Schneiderman, Bette E.; Hecht, Deborah

doi:10.1007/bf00848264

Cited by 10 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…In a previous qualitative study an attempt was made to explore the values of newly admitted medical students, not yet exposed to the influence of medical education and training 8 . The stated values concerning diseases resembled those of the laymen in previous studies 3,9,10 . Thus, diseases believed to disintegrate body or mind, and thereby to be stigmatizing, were most feared by the students.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 60%

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Serious, frightening and interesting conditions: differences in values and attitudes between first-year and final-year medical students

et al. 2002

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Serious, frightening and interesting conditions: differences in values and attitudes between first-year and final-year medical students.Brorsson, Annika; Hellquist, Gunilla; Björkelund, Cecilia; Råstam, Lennart Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Brorsson, A., Hellquist, G., Björkelund, C., & Råstam, L. (2002). Serious, frightening and interesting conditions: differences in values and attitudes between first-year and final-year medical students. Medical Education, 36(6), 555-560. DOI: 10.1046555-560. DOI: 10. /j.1365555-560. DOI: 10. -2923555-560. DOI: 10. .2002 General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.• Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research.• You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal Context and objective During medical education and training, the values and attitudes of medical students are shaped both by knowledge and by role models. In this study, the aim was to compare the views of firstand final-year students concerning patients with different medical conditions. Participants and methodIn the spring of 1998 all firstand final-year medical students at Gö teborg and Lund Universities, Sweden, were invited to answer a questionnaire. A total of 20 medical conditions were to be rated on visual analogue scales, according to three aspects: their perceived seriousness, the student's own fear of them and interest in working with these conditions in the future.Results The overall response rate was 75%. Concerning seriousness, there was a high degree of concordance between the first-and final-year students. Concerning their own fear, the concordance was less pronounced. When the conditions were rated from the aspect of interest, for the final-year students, gastric or duodenal ulcer replaced infection with Ebola virus for the first-year students, among the five highest-ranked conditions. The correlations between seriousness and fear were lower among the final-year students, but this reached statistical significance only in a few cases.Discussion A reasonable interpretation of the results is that the values and attitudes of the students were influenced by increased knowledge, as well as by role models encountered during the clinical parts of the training. Conditions less likely to be contracted become less feared, and conditions with effective treatment become more interesting; and the converse was true for each of these changes.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 60%

“…The medical conditions were selected in order to cover multiple dimensions, e.g. threat to life, acute or chronic, availability of effective treatment, psychosocial involvement and potential for stigmatization 5,10 …”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Serious, frightening and interesting conditions: differences in values and attitudes between first-year and final-year medical students

et al. 2002

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“…Medical practice also tends to dichotomize diagnoses into two broad classes: those that reflect organic disease and those that are 'functional', generally thought to be due to psychological conflict, behaviour or lifestyle (Kirmayer, 1988;Schmelkin et al 1988). This dual classification then guides the direction of subsequent diagnostic investigation and treatment (Tollefson et al 1984).…”

Section: Three Dimensions Of Symptom Attributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attributions of common somatic symptoms

Robbins

Kirmayer²

1991

Psychol. Med.

265

192

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SYNOPSISThree studies explored the causal attributions of common somatic symptoms. The first two studies established the reliability and validity of a measure of attributional style, the Symptom Interpretation Questionnaire (SIQ). Three dimensions of causal attribution were confirmed: psychological, somatic and normalizing. The third study examined the antecedents and consequences of attributional style in a sample of family medicine patients. Medical and psychiatric history differentially influenced attributional style. Past history and attributional style independently influenced clinical presentations over the subsequent 6 months. Symptom attributional style may contribute to the somatization and psychologization of distress in primary care.

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“…If this is true, there may be reason to wonder whether people from Western cultures will be most susceptible to the "reasoning fallacy." Research in social psychiatry shows that psychological understandings of deviance may be somewhat unique to this cultural setting (Kirmayer, 1989;Schmelkin, Wachtel, Schneiderman, & Hecht, 1988).…”

Section: Concepts Of Normalitymentioning

confidence: 98%

Does Understanding Behavior Make It Seem Normal?

Ban

Kashima

Haslam

2010

Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology

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According to recent research, abnormal behavior appears normal to the extent it is understood. Cultural differences in frameworks for making sense of abnormality suggest there may be variations in this “reasoning fallacy.” In light of evidence that people from Western cultures psychologize abnormality to a greater extent than people from East Asian cultures, the effect of understanding on perceptions of abnormality was predicted to differ across cultures. Results of a cross-cultural questionnaire study indicated that understanding made behavior seem normal to European Australians ( n = 51), consistent with the reasoning fallacy. For Singaporeans ( n = 51), however, understanding did not influence the extent to which behavior was normalized and made abnormal behavior more stigmatizing. Cultural variations in the effect of understanding were attributed to the differential salience of deviance frameworks, which are grounded in culturally specific conceptions of the person.

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The dimensional structure of medical students' perceptions of diseases

Cited by 10 publications

References 19 publications

Serious, frightening and interesting conditions: differences in values and attitudes between first-year and final-year medical students

Serious, frightening and interesting conditions: differences in values and attitudes between first-year and final-year medical students

Attributions of common somatic symptoms

Does Understanding Behavior Make It Seem Normal?

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