HEALTH CONCEPTIONS AMONG LAY PERSONS: A DESCRIPTIVE STRUCTURE.
Contributors: Case Western Reserve University.
Published: 1987
Number of pages: 180
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: This was a phenomenological study undertaken to expand the understanding of health as a phenomenon. A phenomenological approach was used to elicit the essence of meaning attached to the term health from the lay perspective. The purpose was to describe characteristics underlying the construct of health and to develop inductively a descriptive structure for the health construct. Results of this study will provide insight for placing concepts and phenomena in future nursing theories within domains.

Analysis was conducted on data obtained through intensive open-ended inteviews of 12 informants. Informants were selected purposively on the basis of maximum variation sampling. Adequacy of sampling was determined by exceeding the point of redundancy by two informants. The point of redundancy was the point at which no new categories emerged. Interviews were conducted in the informants' work and home settings. Data collection and analysis proceeded simultaneously. Analysis included identification and coding of meaning units, elimination of redundancy to identify essential characteristics, examination of essential characteristics to identify emergent themes across informants.

Six themes emerged across informants and were admitted into a descriptive structure for the construct of health. These themes were: Balance, Freedom, Ability, Knowing Participation, Wellbeing, and Sharing. Propositions arising from this descriptive structure include: Health is composed of ability, knowing participation, wellbeing, and sharing; Health is a reflexive balance; Health is integral with life; Health is experienced as freedom; and Health transcends time through the dimension of sharing. It was concluded that health is both a state and a process. A structural definition constructed from the descriptive structure is: Health is a reflexive life balance composed of ability, knowing participation, wellbeing, and sharing and experienced as freedom.

There was less variation than expected among personal meanings, with variation occuring in which themes were emphasized not which were included. Although individual health conceptualizations consistent with the role-functional, adaptive, and eudaimonistic models were found, none was consistent with the clinical model. The findings are consistent with the notion that health is more than the absence of disease and are consistent with aspects of various models of health, indicating that models may focus on different aspects of health.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 48-01, Section: B, page: 0091.

Thesis (PH.D.)--CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY, 1987.

School code: 0042.