Health beliefs and preferences for medical treatment: a comparison between medical and social science students

Author(s): Yardley, L., Fahmy, S., Jamie, A.

Abstract: Objective: This study looked at the relationship between beliefs in scientific medicine', personal health beliefs, attitudes to complementary medical practitioners and medical treatment preferences in two different groups: medical and non-medical (mainly social science) students. lt extended the previous work of looking at patient groups. Design: Once the psychometric properties of the four short questionnaires (53 items in all) were established as satisfactory in terms of their factor structure, the two groups were compared. Results: By means of analysis of variance it was established that there were fewer differences between medical and non-medical students than might be expected by chance. A higher order factor analysis revealed three clear factors underlying attitudes to complementary medicine: pro complementary medicine; pro orthodox medicine; and satisfaction with general practitioner. All the students appeared to have a sceptical but positive attitude to complementary medicine.

Zurück | Weiter