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Biomedical subjects

M Calnan

Publications and source records attributed to M Calnan.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources
PubMed1985

Patterns in preventive behaviour: a study of women in middle age.

There has been little comparative research to discover if the same people take part in different preventive health programmes. The study described here examines if the same women carry out seven different types of preventive health behaviour and attempts to identify ways of characterising participants or non-participants in the various forms of behaviour. The results show that the probability of women who carry out one type of preventive health behaviour carrying out another was low. However, the one factor that distinguished between participation and non-participation in various forms of preventive health behaviour was social class. The need to develop a model of health behaviour which accommodates both general structural factors and specific beliefs and circumstances is recommended.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed1985

Health, health risks and inequalities: an exploratory study of women's perceptions.

Recent theoretical and empirical research has highlighted the importance of understanding the relationship between social structure and health beliefs. The empirical study described here explores the relationships between occupational social class and two dimensions of health beliefs which were concepts of health and perception of vulnerability to disease. Both the dimensions are claimed to be associated with decisions to carry out health behaviour and thus one of the aims was to shed some light on the social class gradient in patterns of preventive health behaviour and risk-taking behaviour. The findings showed a more marked social class differentiation in concepts of health when they were defined in the abstract compared with when they were defined in relation to personal health. The concept of personal vulnerability itself was shown to be problematic and theories about vulnerability were similar for both classes. Explanations for the findings are discussed.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed1985

An evaluation of the effectiveness of a class teaching breast self-examination.

Interviews were carried out with a sample of women before they were invited to attend a class teaching breast self-examination (BSE), and then again a year later. Two-stage interviews were also carried out with a sample of women in a control district. This enabled an evaluation of the effectiveness of the class by comparing the changes in BSE practice over the year amongst those who attended the class, those who declined to attend the class and those in the control district. Those who attended the class showed a more marked improvement in BSE practice, particularly in the technique used, compared with the non-attenders and those in the control district. This finding was still evident even after a range of possible confounding factors was taken into account. Further analyses showed that beliefs about the value of BSE were the strongest predictors of changes in BSE practice.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed1984

Women and medicalisation: an empirical examination of the extent of women's dependence on medical technology in the early detection of breast cancer.

Recent criticisms of the thesis of medicalisation focusing at the level of doctor-patient interaction have suggested that patient dependency on or addiction to modern scientific medicine and in particular medical scientific technology is overstated. However, empirical research to examine this is difficult to find. The study presented here throws some light on this issue as it looks at women's beliefs and feelings about breast screening and breast self-examination and the prospect of attending for breast screening or a class which teaches BSE. The results show that the generalised concept of patient dependence is limited although there was more support for women's dependence on medical technology than choosing to be directly responsible for identifying abnormalities themselves and managing them.

Attitude↗
PubMed1984

The health belief model and participation in programmes for the early detection of breast cancer: a comparative analysis.

Extravagant claims have been made about the power of the Health Belief Model (HBM) to explain both decisions to adopt patterns of health behaviour and to use preventive health services. However, studies where information on beliefs are collected before information on behaviour are not common. The analyses presented here are based on prospective studies examining how far the variables which make up the HBM predict attendance at (i) a class teaching breast self-examination and (ii) a clinic providing mammography. The results show that different dimensions of the HBM are amongst the best predictors of attendance at each of the different services although the overall variance explained by the HBM in both sets of analysis was small.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed1984

The functions of the hospital emergency department: a study of patient demand.

Explanations of patient use of hospital emergency departments have tended to emphasize either patient preferences for hospital treatment or the barriers that restrict patient use of their family practitioner. The weakness in these approaches has been the oversight of situations in which many accidents and some sudden illnesses occur. The object of this study is to examine what part social circumstances play in influencing patients' decisions to go to a hospital emergency department. An analysis of data collected from interviews with the sample of patients at a hospital emergency department suggests that social circumstances may be an important influence on patient demand for hospital service. The policy implications of these findings are discussed.

Emergency Service, Hospital↗
PubMed1984

The politics of health: the case of smoking control.

The policy of the United Kingdom government towards the control of smoking has been characterized by a non-interventionist approach such as persuasion and industrial self-regulation, as opposed to more direct intervention through fiscal policy or control over tobacco production and sales. The effectiveness of the policies adopted by the UK government is difficult to assess, although there has been a reduction over the last ten years in the proportion of smokers in the population. However, evidence from other countries shows that a more comprehensive programme including direct legislation controlling tobacco advertising has a much stronger impact on tobacco consumption. The determinants of the UK government's policy position are analysed and the evidence suggests that this policy position is determined in part by the power of the vested interests in the maintenance of tobacco production, as well as the confusion of interests within the government itself.

Government↗
PubMed1983

Social networks and patterns of help-seeking behaviour.

Previous research has suggested that patterns of help-seeking behaviour are influenced by who the sufferer consults when deciding whether to seek medical care or not. This research has been extended to include episodes of illness and injury where more formal contacts are brought into the consultation process. The results show that the perceived urgency with which medical care is required is influenced by who the person has contact with. Some groups such as the police, bystanders and neighbours and friends may be more likely to suggest that the sufferer should seek medical attention than other consultants. This difference was explained in terms of the social, economic, moral and legal pressures associated with these people's positions.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1983

Managing 'minor' disorders: pathways to a hospital accident and emergency department.

Empirical research examining the decision-making processes involved in the management of problematic signs and symptoms has either focused on a specific condition or examined more general decision rules. The problem with these approaches is the difficulty in identifying which elements are specific to certain complaints and which are more generally applicable. The study presented here shows a comparison of the processes involved in the decision to seek medical care for sufferers with different types of complaint. This comparison identified various different elements in the decision-making processes which were shown to have considerable implications for their pattern of help-seeking behaviour and their pathways to the hospital accident and emergency department.

Decision Making↗
PubMed1982

The hospital accident and emergency department: what is its role?

The problem over the use of accident and emergency departments is portrayed in terms of a typical conflict between professional and lay needs. However, in contrast with the more common image of the professional hospital doctor successfully developing both structural and interactional strategies for maintaining professional dominance over the patient, it is argued that the structural characteristics of the accident and emergency department pose control problems for the profession. These control problems have been exacerbated by developments in other areas of the health service and have led to the development of policies which emphasize both clinical and social elements of patient need. Although there is apparent recognition by providers of the importance of taking into account patient need, the proposed policies are based on professional images of how patients 'ought' to use the service. What is clearly lacking is comprehensive data on how the public and the community wishes to use the service and how they actually use the service. Data from national and local studies on patient felt needs and patient demand for the hospital accident and emergency departments are presented and the implications for policy are discussed.

Decision Making↗
PubMed1978

Tonsillectomy and circumcision: comparisons of two cohorts.

Changes in the prevalence of tonsillectomy and circumcision in eleven year olds are described in two birth cohorts spaced 12 years apart. Both types of operation were less prevalent in the later (1958) cohort; tonsillectomy fell by a fifth and circumcision by more than half. These falls were confined to tonsillectomy before the age of six and circumcision under one year. Social class differences in tonsillectomy were found in both cohort studies but the strong social class gradient in circumcision reported in the 1946 cohort had vanished in the 1958. Regional and birth rank differences are found for both types of operation; these show substantial changes over time. These results are discussed in the context of changing professional opinions about the worth of these operations.

Child↗
PubMed1977

Incidence of insulin-dependent diabetes in the first sixteen years of life.

The incidence of insulin-dependent diabetes in the first 16 years of life in a nationally representative sample was 1-42 per 1000 population. This incidence is larger than that found in previous studies of diabetes in comparable age-groups and suggests an overall increase in incidence in this country. 23% of the diabetics had a history of diabetes in a first-degree relative, which is higher than reported previously. There was no evidence to suggest any association between prenatal and postnatal infections and diabetes.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1976

Developmental correlates of handedness in a national sample of 11-year-olds.

Some developmental correlates of hand preference in a large nationally representative sample of 11-year-old schoolchildren were examined. Non-right handedness was found to have slight, but statistically significant, associations with deficits of performance on certain standardized attainment and ability tests; with "poor speech" as assessed impressionistically by teachers in school; and with "poor control of hands" as similarly assessed by teachers. Non-right handedness was not associated with defects of articulation or stammering as assessed by doctors in a medical examination; nor withperformance on a clinical speech test; nor with writing productivity or syntactic maturity. There were substantial sex differences in the frequencies of non-right handedness, but no social class differences.

Child↗