Typically, psychosomatic medicine has seen disease as an endpoint and has focused on the role of psychological factors in etiology or on the psychopathological consequences of illness. In contrast, the illness perception approach begins with the patient's experience of their illness and the main emphasis is on the patient's own model of their condition. Just as people construct representations ...

Background. This study aimed to assess the relationship between illness perception and depressive symptoms among persons with diabetes. Method. This was an analytical cross-sectional study conducted among 379 type 2 diabetic patients from three major clinical settings of Kathmandu, Nepal. Results. The prevalence of depressive symptoms was 44.1% (95% CI: 39.1, 49.1). Females (p < 0.01), homemake...

Aim. The study investigated the differences between patients with and without a family history of cancer regarding coping strategies, illness perception, and family adaptability to the disease. Material and Methods. A total of 124 patients diagnosed with cancer were included in the research (55 of them with a family history of cancer). The Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, the Strateg...

BACKGROUND Individual beliefs and cognitions may affect adjustment to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and illness perceptions, in particular, have been reported to correlate with both disability and psychological adjustment to CFS in self-diagnosed cases. OBJECTIVES The aim of the present study was to examine these relationships in a clinic sample of CFS patients assessed by both a physician a...

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the parallel client and clinician versions of the Illness Management and Recovery Scale (IMRS) developed to monitor the clients' progress in the Illness Management and Recovery (IMR) program in schizophrenia. A total of 107 study participants completed assessments of the IMRS, interview-based ratings of psychiatric symp...

OBJECTIVE This study provides a longitudinal assessment of distress in longer-term oesophageal cancer carers, while examining illness perception schema as a possible determinant of change in distress over time. METHODS Oesophageal cancer carers (n = 171), 48 months post-diagnosis, were assessed at baseline and 12 months later with the Illness Perception Questionnaire-Revised, Cancer Coping Qu...

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...

One of the major causes of morbidity and mortality in breast cancer patients is delay in seeking help. Leventhal's self-regulation model provides an appropriate framework to assess delay in seeking help. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between "illness perception" and "help seeking delay" in breast cancer patients based on Leventhal's self-regulation model. In this cor...

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 ...

OBJECTIVE To examine the extent to which the illness perceptions of Oesophageal cancer survivors and the illness perceptions of their carers explain the survivors' levels of psychological distress (in terms of anxiety and depression symptoms) relative to demographic and biomedical variables and patients' coping strategies. METHOD Everyone registered with the Oesophageal Patients' Association ...