[Health and sickness as sociological concepts]
- PMID: 1154192
[Health and sickness as sociological concepts]
Abstract
Health and illness, as widely used terms in scientific literature, leave a wide scope as to their definition and conceptual interpretation. The medicotechnical perspective refers to health and illness as objective changes in the structure and/or functioning of the human body and mind, as a result of which the bodily and mental integrity of the human organism is affected detrimentally. On the contrary, the social sciences, and especially medical sociology, define health and illness essentially in terms of the social system within which they occur. The main task of medical sociology is to pay attention to those social systemic and sociocultural aspects of health and illness which are sometimes grossly neglected or insufficiently understood by the medical sciences, thereby to contribute to a comprehensive approach to these phenomena.
Similar articles
-
On the triad disease, illness and sickness.J Med Philos. 2002 Dec;27(6):651-73. doi: 10.1076/jmep.27.6.651.13793. J Med Philos. 2002. PMID: 12607162 Review.
-
The social nature of health and illness--evolution of research approaches in Polish classical medical sociology.Ann Agric Environ Med. 2012;19(4):821-35. Ann Agric Environ Med. 2012. PMID: 23311815 Review.
-
The comparative study of health care delivery systems.Annu Rev Sociol. 1975;1:43-65. doi: 10.1146/annurev.so.01.080175.000355. Annu Rev Sociol. 1975. PMID: 12264582
-
The social origin of the illness experience--an outline of problems.Ann Agric Environ Med. 2014;21(3):654-60. doi: 10.5604/12321966.1120619. Ann Agric Environ Med. 2014. PMID: 25292147 Review.
-
[The doctor-patient relationship: a sociological perspective].S Afr Med J. 1974 Aug 17;48(40):1728-34. S Afr Med J. 1974. PMID: 4849899 Afrikaans. No abstract available.