Instrument

University of Bergen

IPQ

Research using a variety of different assessment techniques suggests patients cluster their ideas about an illness around five coherent themes or components. These components together make up the patient's perception of their illness. The components provide a framework for patients to make sense of their symptoms, assess health risk, and direct action and coping. Each of these components holds a perception about one aspect of the illness and together they provide the individual's coherent view of an illness. The major cognitive components identified from research are: Identity - which is comprised of the label of the illness and the symptoms the patient views as being part of the disease; Cause - personal ideas about aetiology which may include simple single causes or more complex multiple causal models; Time-line - how long the patient believes the illness will last. These can be categorised into acute, chronic or episodic; Consequences - expected effects and outcome of the illness; and Cure/control - how one recovers from, or controls, the illness. These components show logical interrelationships. For example a strong belief that the illness can be cured or controlled is typically associated with short perceived illness duration and relatively minor consequences. In contrast, beliefs that an illness will last a long time and has a number of symptoms tends to be associated with more severe consequences perceptions and lower beliefs about cure or control of the disease. An important question that we have little information on at present is where do illness beliefs come from? It is likely that people build up knowledge and impressions of illness they develop more elaborate models of particular diseases. It is not necessary to have had direct experience with an illness. The source of people's perceptions of illness is diverse and ranges from first hand experiences with a family member who may suffer from an illness, to information from the relatives and friends as well as the media. These perceptions may lie dormant until they are activated by their own illness or someone close to them.

Factor Analysis; Statistical; Perception; Psychometrics; Questionnaires; Cognition; Emotions; Illness Behavior; Predictive Value of Tests; Principal Component Analysis; Quality of Life; Reproducibility of Results

Patient cognitive models of their illness are, by their nature, private. Patients are often reluctant to discuss their beliefs about their illness in medical consultations because they fear being seen as stupid or misinformed. Until recently, assessment of illness perceptions has been by open-ended interviews designed to encourage patients to elaborate their own ideas of the their illness. However, recently a questionnaire has been developed to measure illness perceptions in a variety of illnesses. This questionnaire assesses perceptions on each of the five dimensions by asking patients for their own beliefs about their condition.

InfoPac

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