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Patients have their own medical belief systems.
This medical belief system represents the patient’s idea about the cause of the disease.
The patient and parents often have also an idea, how the disease might be treated.
Why do they do that?
This world is a complicated place.
We rarely understand everything in depth. Therefore, when we lack understanding, we need to settle for assumptions.
We settle for views that we call self-evident. This “knowledge” about the world is regularly a belief system.
We all typically fall prey to the confirmation bias, the unconscious goal to preserve our first understanding of situations and people.
Concepts about disease
What are typical mental concepts of patients about disease — what are their medical belief systems?
- Disease is the result of guilt:
- either I am punished for my mistake
- or someone else is to blame for my suffering
- The most visible coincidence must be the cause of the disease.
- Nobody can help me/ my child.
- I do not deserve help.
- I must fight to get what I/ my child deserve/s.
- This should not happen to me/ my child.
- These doctors are not really interested in our wellbeing. They just want to make money.
Different views impacts communication
The parent and patient enter the conversation with me with their own belief system.
There comes a point during the conversation with my patient, when I might need to contradict them.
I need to question their own explanation for the situation.
When I challenge their “world-view”, this challenge can easily lead to a clash of opinions and to misunderstanding.
This tension can result in a failed encounter in the clinic.
The question is whether the healthcare provider should shy away from confronting wrong assumptions?
In a nutshell:
Patients have their own medical belief systems.
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