Abstract
In this chapter we present research on the roles that traditional and folk knowledge play in comprehension and use of health concepts in making health related decisions. The studies were conducted with children and mothers in several less developed countries of Africa, Asia and South America. Issues relevant to personal healthcare, such as the abilities for following health-related instructions, conceptualizations of causal mechanisms of disease, traditional beliefs and practices of family planning, and the assessment of health related cognitive activities are the focus of the chapter. We discuss these issues in the context of the relation between folk beliefs and modern biomedical knowledge. We also present some thoughts on ways to advance in our understanding of health cognition in relation to health beliefs and behavioral outcomes for further research, and the potential benefits that such understanding can provide for more adequate health promotion intervention efforts.
Keywords
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Arocha JF, Patel VL. Methods in the study of clinical reasoning. In: Higgs J, Jones M, Loftus S, Christensen N, editors. Clinical reasoning in the health professions. London: Butterworth-Heinemann Elsevier; 2008. p. 193–203.
Arocha JF, Wang D, Patel VL. Identifying reasoning strategies in medical decision making: a methodological guide. J Biomed Inform. 2005;38:154–71.
Bachelard G. The formation of the scientific spirit. Manchester, UK: Clinamen Press; 2002.
Chi MTH, Feltovich PJ, Glaser R. Categorization and representation of physics problems by experts and novices. Cogn Sci. 1981;5:121–52.
Chi MT, Glaser R, Farr MJ. The nature of expertise. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum; 1988.
Coney J. Individual differences and task format in sentence verification. Curr Psychol. 1988;7:122–35.
Eisemon T, Patel V, Sena S. Uses of formal and informal knowledge in the comprehension of instructions for oral rehydration therapy in Kenya. Soc Sci Med. 1987;25:1225–34.
Eisemon TO, Ratzlaff J, Patel VL. Reading instructions for using commercial medicines. Ann Am Acad Polit Soc Sci. 1992;520:76–90.
Garro LC. Narrative representations of chronic illness experience: cultural models of illness, mind, and body in stories concerning the temporomandibular joint. Soc Sci Med. 1994;38:775–88.
Gelfand M, Drummond RB, Mair S, Ndemera B. The traditional medical practitioner in Zimbabwe: his principles of practice and pharmacopoeia. Gweru, Zimbabwe: Mambo Press; 1985.
Glaser R, Lesgold AM, Lajoie S. Toward a cognitive theory for the measurement of achievement. In: Ronning RR, GLover JA, Conoley JC, Witt JC, editors. The influence of cognitive psychology on testing. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum; 1987. p. 41–85.
Greeno JG. Response: on claims that answer the wrong questions. Educ Res. 1997;26:5–17.
Hawkins RP, Kreuter M, Resnicow K, Fishbein M, Dijkstra A. Understanding tailoring in communicating about health. Health Educ Res. 2008;23:454.
Holmstrom IM, Rosenqvist U. Misunderstandings about illness and treatment among patients with type 2 diabetes. J Adv Nurs. 2005;49:146–54.
Jin J, Sklar GE, Oh VMS, Li SC. Factors affecting therapeutic compliance: a review from the patient’s perspective. Ther Clin Risk Manag. 2008;4:269–86.
Kahneman D, Klein G. Conditions for intuitive expertise: a failure to disagree. Am Psychol. 2009;64:515–26.
Kenkel DS. Health behavior, health knowledge, and schooling. J Polit Econ. 1991;99:287–305.
Keselman A, Kaufman DR, Patel VL. “You can exercise your way out of HIV” and other stories: the role of biological knowledge in adolescents’ evaluation of myths. Sci Educ. 2004;88:548–73.
Kintsch W. Comprehension: a paradigm for cognition. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press; 1998.
Klein G. Naturalistic decision making. Hum Factors. 2008;50:456–60.
Kreuter MW, Sugg-Skinner C, Holt CL, et al. Cultural tailoring for mammography and fruit and vegetable intake among low-income African-American women in urban public health centers. Prev Med. 2005;41:53–62.
Larkin J, McDermott J, Simon DP, Simon HA. Expert and novice performance in solving physics problems. Science. 1980;208:1335–42.
Leventhal H, Leventhal EA, Breland JY. Cognitive science speaks to the “common-sense” of chronic illness management. Ann Behav Med. 2011;41:152–63.
Meyer D, Leventhal H, Gutmann M. Common-sense models of illness: the example of hypertension. Health Psychol. 1985;4:115–35.
Patel VL, Groen GJ, Frederiksen CH. Differences between medical students and doctors in memory for clinical cases. Med Educ. 1986;20:3–9.
Patel VL, Eisemon TO, Arocha JF. Causal reasoning and the treatment of diarrhoeal disease by mothers in Kenya. Soc Sci Med. 1988;27:1277–86.
Patel VL, Eisemon TO, Arocha JF. Comprehending instructions for using pharmaceutical products in rural Kenya. Instr Sci. 1990a;19:71–84.
Patel VL, Groen GJ, Arocha JF. Medical expertise as a function of task difficulty. Mem Cogn. 1990b;18:394–406.
Patel VL, Kaufman DR, Arocha JF. Conceptual change in the biomedical and health sciences domain. In: Glaser R, editor. Advances in instructional psychology. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum; 2000. p. 329–92.
Patel V, Arocha J, Diermeier M, Greenes R, Shortliffe E. Methods of cognitive analysis to support the design and evaluation of biomedical systems: the case of clinical practice guidelines. J Biomed Inform. 2001;34:52–66.
Patel VL, Arocha JF, Kushniruk AW. Patients and physicians understanding of health and biomedical concepts: relationship to the design of EMR systems. J Biomed Inform. 2002a;35:8–16.
Patel VL, Branch T, Arocha JF. Errors in interpreting quantities as procedures: the case of pharmaceutical labels. Int J Med Inform. 2002b;65:193–211.
Percival LJ, Patel VL. Sexual beliefs and practices by women in urban Zimbabwe: implications for health education. McGill J Educ. 1993;28:253–68.
Royer JM, et al. The sentence verification technique: A practical procedure for testing comprehension. J Read. 1987;30:414–22.
Sivaramakrishnan M, Patel VL. Reasoning about childhood nutritional deficiencies by mothers in rural India: a cognitive analysis. Soc Sci Med. 1993;37:937–52.
Sivaramakrishnan M, Arocha JF, Patel VL. Cognitive assessment and health education in children from two different cultures. Soc Sci Med (1982). 1998;47:697–712.
Strauss E, Sherman EMS, Spreen O. A compendium of neuropsychological tests: administration, norms, and commentary. Oxford University Press: Oxford; 2006. p. 1216.
UN-Department of Economic and Social Affairs/Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. World migration in figures. 2013. http://www.oecd.org/els/mig/World.
Verhaeghen P, Martin M, Sedek G. Reconnecting cognition in the lab and cognition in real life: the role of compensatory social and motivational factors in explaining how cognition ages in the wild. Personal Soc Psychol Bull. 2008;34:248–59.
Zhang J, Verhoef MJ. Illness management strategies among Chinese immigrants living with arthritis. Soc Sci Med. 2002;55:1795–802.
de Zoysa I, Carson D, Feachem R, Kirkwood B, Lindsay-Smith E, Loewenson R. Perceptions of childhood diarrhea and its treatment in rural Zimbabwe. Soc Sci Med. 1984;19:727–34.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Arocha, J.F., Patel, V.L. (2017). Making Sense of Health Problems: Folk Cognition and Healthcare Decisions. In: Patel, V., Arocha, J., Ancker, J. (eds) Cognitive Informatics in Health and Biomedicine. Health Informatics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51732-2_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51732-2_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-51731-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-51732-2
eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)