Dimensional Complexity of Older Patients; Illness Representations of Arthritis and Diabetes
- 1 March 1996
- journal article
- Published by Taylor & Francis in Basic and Applied Social Psychology
- Vol. 18 (1) , 45-59
- https://doi.org/10.1207/s15324834basp1801_5
Abstract
We investigated the complexity of illness representations among older adults (N = 156) with osteoarthritis and non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, two of the most prevalent chronic diseases. A card-sorting task indicated that participants with osteoarthritis (n = 80) had more complex representations for arthritis than for diabetes, whereas participants with non-insulin-dependent diabetes (n = 76) had more complex representations for diabetes than for arthritis. The findings suggested that personal experience of a chronic disease may be likened to expertise. The card-sorting task is recommended as a means of investigating implicit as well as explicit aspects of the illness representations of older adults.Keywords
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