Strategies adopted by late middle-age and older adults with HIV/AIDS to explain their physical symptoms.
Strategies adopted by late middle-age and older adults with HIV/AIDS to explain their physical symptoms.
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DOI：
10.1080/08870441003681299
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发表时间：
2011-05
影响因子：
3.3
通讯作者：
Brown-Bradley CJ
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Siegel K;Lekas HM;Schrimshaw EW;Brown-Bradley CJ
Although the attributions individuals make about what causes their physical symptoms are known to influence their care seeking and self-care behaviors, much less is known about the strategies they use to arrive at these attributions. The strategies employed to understand the causes of their symptoms were investigated using in-depth interviews with 100 late-middle-age and older adults with HIV/AIDS in New York City. The data revealed that most actively sought to explain their symptoms. The explanatory strategies identified included: relying upon illness or medication representations, lay beliefs about the body and aging, invoking pre-existing vulnerabilities, engaging in lay experimentation, social comparison processes, considering temporal ordering, and consulting authoritative sources. While most offered a single cause for their symptoms, some offered more complex multi-causal explanations. These findings provide understanding into the reasons why some older adults with HIV/AIDS misattribute symptoms resulting in delay in care or care over-utilization, suggesting the need for patient education.
