DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Understanding Sick Role, Social Networks, Information-seeking and Health Behaviors During the "Uncertainty" Phase of Illness

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It is well known that people who have active illnesses assume a special role in society, with different expectations of behavior, known as the "sick role". This dissertation research project studies how people diagnosed with diseases of uncertain prognosis that last their lifetime, but are invisible to others, deal with their identity as "sick" persons. The student, an anthropologist from Case Western Reserve University, will interview a sample of 40 women diagnosed with breast cancer to examine their willingness to claim a sick role status; to describe their health-seeking behaviors and plans; to determine the characteristics of their social networks related to their ability to access information about treatment options; and to compare these issues in women taking ongoing treatment with women not taking therapy during the "uncertainty phase" of their illness. Participants will be drawn from breast cancer patients involved in a larger study in the Cleveland metropolitan area. The method will be intensive interviews recorded and transcribed. This research will advance our theoretical understanding of the sick role as it applies to a broader disease context, of a potentially fatal disease that is hidden from the uninformed and has an unknowable outcome. It will also advance our understanding of how social networks work to facilitate information in situations of relative personal crisis.