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Delay in seeking help

from Psychology, health and illness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2014

By
Suzanne E. Scott
Edited by
Susan Ayers ,
Andrew Baum ,
Chris McManus ,
Stanton Newman ,
Kenneth Wallston ,
John Weinman  and
Robert West
Suzanne E. Scott
Affiliation:
King's College London
Susan Ayers
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
Andrew Baum
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Chris McManus
Affiliation:
St Mary's Hospital Medical School
Stanton Newman
Affiliation:
University College and Middlesex School of Medicine
Kenneth Wallston
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University School of Nursing
John Weinman
Affiliation:
United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas's
Robert West
Affiliation:
St George's Hospital Medical School, University of London
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Summary

Following the detection of a symptom, the majority of individuals do not seek professional help, but instead do nothing or self-medicate (Freer, 1980). Whilst these responses may play a useful role in limiting the burden on healthcare services for benign and minor conditions, a continuing and important issue is delay in seeking help for symptoms that are indicative of life-threatening diseases. The intention of this chapter is to summarize the theoretical approaches used to study and understand help-seeking behaviour, with particular reference to delay in seeking help for symptoms of cancer and myocardial infarction (as these have been the most widely researched areas), and finally to discuss the implications of this research.

Delay in help-seeking or ‘patient delay’ (Pack & Gallo, 1938) is the time taken from the detection of a symptom to the first consultation with a healthcare professional for that symptom. This is distinct from ‘professional delay’ (the time from the first consultation with a healthcare professional regarding a symptom to the receipt of a definitive diagnosis). The overall duration of delay has been divided in such a manner because an undifferentiated measure like ‘total delay’ (the time from the detection of a symptom to the receipt of a definitive diagnosis) may confound the effects of multiple factors that influence delay (Safer et al., 1979). For instance, the factors that hinder a patient's decision to seek help following the self-discovery of a breast lump may be quite different from those that cause a delay in reaching a definitive diagnosis of breast cancer following the first consultation with a healthcare professional.

Type
Chapter
Information
Cambridge Handbook of Psychology, Health and Medicine , pp. 70 - 74
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

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