Culture and Health: Explanatory Models of Illness and Treatment

This essay delves into the intersection of culture and health, focusing on the explanatory model as a framework for understanding how individuals interpret, experience, and manage illness. It explores the concept of explanatory models, which encompass beliefs about disease etiology, symptoms, and treatment, and how these models influence healthcare decisions. The essay highlights the significance of illness perceptions, the cognitive and emotional representations of disease, and how they are shaped by cultural beliefs. The essay uses the example of breast cancer to illustrate how cultural factors influence illness perceptions and treatment adherence. The essay references the study by Harrow et al. (2008) which used clay to understand the women's perceptions of breast cancer. It also discusses cultural variations in illness perceptions and their impact on treatment outcomes, emphasizing the need for physicians to consider patients' cultural backgrounds. The conclusion stresses the importance of evaluating illness perceptions in order to provide better patient care.

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CULTURE AND HEALTH
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Culture and Health
Explanatory model is a theoretical model that offers a way of comprehending the
procedure in which disease is interpreted, patterned, as well as managed. The explanatory model
is described as the ideas regarding an occurrence of illness besides its treatment, which is used
by those individuals connected in the clinical procedure. The model provide an explanation of
sickness along with treatment that direct choices amongst accessible resources plus that cast
personal, as well as social implication on the incident of illness (Kirmayer & Sartorius, 2007, pp.
833). Kleinman differentiates between the explanatory models and general beliefs regarding
sickness and health care; explanatory models are constituted in reaction to specific disease
episode. The explanatory model generally offers explanations of diverse elements of the disease
that include etiology; timing and mode of onset signs and symptoms; pathophysiology, course of
disease, comprising extent of severity and kind of sick role; treatment matters; and challenges
and fears linked to the disease.
In his latest work, Kleinman (1988b) concentrates on the disease or illness narratives of
patients that suffer from chronic illness or pain. The narrative is employed by the chronically ill
individual to fashion a meaning and to offer order on episodes and experiences; it is recreated
and reviewed according to the changes over some given time. The disease narrative is a story the
patients narrates, and significant others tell, to offer consistency to the distinct events plus long-
standing course of suffering (Dein, 2004, pp. 119). Because of long and regular capricious course
of chronic disease, the illness narrative works not only to reflect the disease experience;
however, to influence and even fashion experience among the patients suffering from the specific
illness. Kleinman recommends that diverse elements of health care in the society can be viewed
as cultural system, which is a scheme of symbolic implications founded on specific organizations

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of social institutions along with patterns of interpersonal interfaces. This implies that the health
care systems can be conceptualized as the blend of beliefs regarding disease, healing actions,
ideas about along with expectations of treatment, clinical environments, as well as institutions,
roles along with status relationships (Würtzen, Dalton & Christensen, 2015, pp. 713).
The explanatory model best fits the explanation regarding breast lump to signify breast
cancer among women in the society. Contemporary empirical study in behavioral medicine
established the conceptual of “illness perceptions” being an important aspect in understanding
and dealing with explanatory models about patients. Thus, disease perceptions are described as
the cognitive and emotional representations of disease and symptoms. A female who considers
that cancer is due to stress along with feelings would not attend a breast cancer treatment and
screening. This is attributed to the cultural belief that the breast cancer cannot be cured by any
medical intervention, which means that the woman will not seek any medical intervention. The
woman believes that the breast cancer testing will not eliminate stress. Women that consider that
the breast cancer condition will not be treated or managed successfully will remain at home
when the chemotherapy program in the health care facility is planned. Therefore, a doctor who
tells the female who never attends chemotherapy that they are incorrect misses being
comprehended by laymen as well as will miss the actuality. On the other side, a physician who
studies the sickness perceptions of the females with cancer and tries to modify the perceptions
into additional adaptive beliefs as well as feelings is most probable triumphant in mounting
attendance at cancer testing along with breast cancer management (Dein, 2004, pp. 120).
To better understand the manner the explanatory works, a study was undertaken by
Harrow et al. (2008) on females with the cancer of breast. The study was designed in a manner
that asked the females with cancer to characterize their breast cancer utilizing clay. These

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females molded clay based on what they experienced their breast cancer looked like. The study
established that nearly all females have a mental picture of their breast cancer (Hale, Treharne &
Kitas, 2007, pp. 905). The images represented by the women mirrored their beliefs regarding
their cancer condition (its character, appearance, and severity) and seemed to be correlated to
various fears and concerns regarding their condition. Thus, the source of mental pictures was
vague; however, seemed to be impacted by scan pictures, oral metaphors offered by health
experts, and past beliefs that are held concerning cancer. In addition, some females utilized
metaphors offered to infer characteristics of breast cancer, which can have been unintentional by
the physician (Harrow, Wells & Humphris, 2008, pp 340).
Moreover, illness perceptions research in line with explanatory model in females with
cancer is a theme with a growing awareness along with significance in behavioral medicine
study. The sickness perceptions with females suffering from cancer of breast are linked to main
results in the course of the disease (Borrell-Carrio, Suchman & Epstein, 2004, pp. 578). Like in
comparable sickness perception study, clinical along with the sociodemographic features are
barely linked to illness perceptions. Therefore, this is in line with self-regulation framework, in
which it is described the way sickness perceptions impacted by the way individuals perceive.
The sickness perceptions primarily guide patients in their health manners and sickness behavior.
Accordingly, disease perceptions differ based on the different cultures around the world. It has
been established that whilst Japanese along with Dutch females with cancer score comparatively
the same on the sickness perceptions measure, females from Indonesia with cancer of the breast
score very much lesser on treatment, as well as personal control. Cultural variations in beliefs
concerning treatment in addition to beliefs in natural remedies influence sickness perceptions
among the women with breast cancer (Kaptein & Lyons, 2009, pp. 849).

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In conclusion, it is clear that explanatory model clearly provides an avenue that allows
the physicians to better understand the illness of an individual. The illness perceptions have been
found to differ from one culture to another. The women with breast cancer better provides an
understanding how the illness perceptions of their conditions shapes their beliefs that affects the
treatment process (Hoogerwerf, Ninaber & Willems, 2012, pp. 1171). Evaluating illness
perceptions to recognize for which intervention in the psychosocial domains appears shown is a
vital portion of contemporary care for females with breast cancer. The illness perceptions have
been utilized to improve the health condition of females suffering from cancer based on better
appreciating on the part of the physician.

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References
Borrell-Carrio F, Suchman AL, & Epstein RM. (2004). The biopsychosocial model 25 years
later: principles, practice, and scientific inquiry. Ann Fam Med.2:576–82.
Dein S. (2004). Explanatory models of and attitudes towards cancer in different cultures. Lancet
Oncol. 5:119–24.
Hale, E. D., Treharne, G. J., & Kitas, G. D. (2007). The common-sense model of self-regulation
of health and illness: How can we use it to understand and respond to our patients’
needs? Rheumatology, 46, 904–906.
Harrow A, Wells M, & Humphris G. (2008). “Seeing is believing, and believing is seeing”: an
exploration of the meaning and impact of women’s mental images of their breast cancer
and their potential origins. Pt Educ Couns. 73:339–46.
Hoogerwerf MA, Ninaber MK, Willems LNA. (2012). “Feelings are facts”: illness perceptions in
lung cancer. Respir Med. 106:1170–6.
Kaptein AA & Lyons AC. (2009). Cancer ward: patient perceptions in oncology. J
Health Psychol. 15:848–57.
Kirmayer, L. J., & Sartorius, N. (2007). Cultural models and somatic syndromes. Psychosomatic
Medicine, 69, 832–840.
Würtzen H, Dalton SO, & Christensen J. (2015). “Effect of mindfulness-based stress reduction
on somatic symptoms, distress, mindfulness and spiritual wellbeing in women with breast
cancer: Results of a randomized controlled trial. Acta Oncol. 54:712–9.

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