BACKGROUND Perceptions of illness are important determinants of health behaviour. A better understanding of perceptions of obesity might allow more effective interventions that challenge these perceptions through lifestyle modification programs. Although several studies have evaluated causal attributions with regard to obesity, other domains of illness perception, such as the perceived conseque...

Background: In the “treating to target” strategy to rheumatoid arthritis (RA) management, “cognitive” beyond “physical” measures allow a more comprehensive assessment. This study reports a predictive analysis of patient properties on Disease Activity, and the degree to which these predictions could be uniquely attributable to Illness perception (IP), pain, and sex differences. Methods: This cr...

Chronic illness causes the majority of disease burden and health costs in developed countries; however, this could be substantially reduced by optimal patient self-management. This study examined the levels of self-management in patients (n = 300) with chronic illness (chronic heart failure, chronic respiratory disease, Parkinson's disease and chronic schizophrenia) of moderate severity who had...

The complexity of AIDS involves not just the cognitive side of knowledge, but also the psychosocial factors that influence the behavior of individuals. The objective of this study was to identify the perceptions of HIV-positive mothers concerning the severity of the infection. This is a qualitative study for which were interviewed 14 seropositive mothers who bore a child in the year of 2004. To...

BACKGROUND Illness perceptions are linked to individual help-seeking and preventive behaviors. Previous illness perception studies have identified five dimensions of illness-related experience and behaviour. The Revised Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ-R) for genetic predisposition (IPQ-R-GP) was developed to measure illness perceptions in those genetically-predisposed to blood disease. We...

Objective Discrepancies in illness representations between patients and physicians result in treatment difficulties, decreased well-being of patients and misunderstandings and disrupted communication. Hence, the objective of this study was to compare illness perceptions of individual patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and systemic sclerosis (SSc), their rheumatologists and their g...

OBJECTIVE Illness perceptions are key determinants of behavior directed at managing disease. Although suboptimal disease management has been reported in patients with gout, patients' perceptions of illness have not been systematically studied. The aim of this study was to examine illness perceptions in patients with gout. METHODS A total of 142 patients with gout for <10 years were recruited ...

BACKGROUND Interest in self-care haemodialysis (HD) has increased because it improves patients'clinical and quality-of-life outcomes. Patients who undertake self-management for haemodialysis may hold illness beliefs differently to those choosing institutional care at the time of making the modality choice or moulded by their illness and dialysis treatment experience. Illness perceptions amongst...

OBJECTIVE To examine whether adolescents' and parents' perceptions of patient-centered communication (PCC) with the physician may be associated with aspects of patient empowerment (e.g., perceptions of competence) and diabetes management (i.e., adherence and HbA1c). METHODS One hundred and ninety adolescents with type 1 diabetes and their parents rated perceptions of PCC following a clinic vi...

BACKGROUND An individualized patient reported outcome (PRO) has recently been recommended within LBP research, but no study has evaluated this instrument with commonly applied PROs. Moreover, the impact of psychological factors has mostly been assessed for disease-specific instruments. The objective of this study was to assess the predictive value of illness perceptions, pain catastrophizing an...