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

众所周知，患有活动性疾病的人在社会中扮演着特殊的角色，对行为有不同的期望，被称为“病态角色”。本论文的研究项目是研究被诊断为患有预后不确定的疾病的人，这些疾病持续一生，但对其他人来说是看不见的，他们如何处理自己作为病人的身份。这名学生是凯斯西储大学的人类学家，她将采访40名被诊断患有乳腺癌的女性样本，以检查她们声称患病角色状态的意愿；描述她们寻求健康的行为和计划；确定与她们获取治疗方案信息的能力相关的社交网络特征；并比较正在接受治疗的女性和在疾病“不确定阶段”未接受治疗的女性的这些问题。参与者将从参与克利夫兰大都市区一项更大规模研究的乳腺癌患者中挑选出来。这种方法将对密集的采访进行记录和转录。这项研究将推进我们对疾病作用的理论理解，因为它适用于更广泛的疾病背景，即一种对不知情的人隐藏的、具有未知结果的潜在致命疾病。它还将增进我们对社交网络如何在相对个人危机的情况下为信息提供便利的理解。

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.