Cultural attitudes can influence how a patient seeks treatment and from whom, how he or she manages self-care, how he or she makes health decisions, and how she responds to a particular therapy. Cultural factors influence compliance, which is a person's willingness to follow the doctor's instructions. Patients from different cultures may have different beliefs about illness and medicine that may affect their compliance. People from different cultures may also have different preferences for treatments such as acupuncture over medications at least partly due to cultural differences in how they view pain and its management. For example, there are several studies showing that Asian patients prefer non-pharmacological approaches for pain relief such as acupuncture over drugs. There are several reasons why some patients may favor these treatments over drugs including fear of side effects, belief that pain will go away on its own, and desire for holistic care. However, many Asians believe that taking drugs will harm you even if you are not actually sick, so this preference may not be good for your health. Finally, cultural values influence how patients report symptoms. In sympathy seeking behavior, patients seek out medical attention because they feel uncomfortable being ill without knowing what cause is affecting them.