Conference Proceedings - School of Nursing & Midwifery - Trinity ...

School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin: 8 th Annual Interdisciplinary Research Conference
Transforming Healthcare Through Research, Education & Technology: 7 th – 9 th November 2007
Conference Proceedings
while young women also identified fitness as an aspect of health
they preferred ideas of energy, vitality and an ability to cope as
being the significant components of health. In contrast whereas
older men linked functional ability with health they also spoke of
health as being linked to contentment, happiness or a state of mind
even when they were suffering from a disease or disability
themselves. On a general note women expanded more on the
concept of health and appeared to find the whole area of health and
illness research more interesting than did men with many women,
but few men, including social relationships in their definition of what
health means (Blaxter 1997).
Irish views of health
Desmond McCloskey (1989) investigated health beliefs and
practices of a random sample of lay people (n=475; 47% Dublin
city, 53% rural Dublin) in Ireland in order to reach an
understanding of what meaning Irish people attached to health and
to discover what strategies they would take in their pursuit of good
health and to deal with illness. Like other researchers before him
(Blaxter 1982, 1983, Herzlich 1973, d’Houtard & Field 1984, Calnan
1984) McCloskey’s findings confirmed that health is a multidimensional
concept. In particular his Irish sample identified health
as the absence of illness, which he described as a functional aspect
that did not impede one’s ability to perform societal norms or
undertake usual roles. His sample also rated being happy, an
ability to cope with life, which he categorised as well-being,
together with what he termed an emphasis on fitness or being
physically fit, active and energetic as important components of
health. In effect these findings were remarkably similar to those of
Blaxter (1997: 53) on a similar type of sample.
However, where McCloskey’s findings differed from those of Blaxter
was that for the Irish respondents the absence of illness was a
prerequisite for being healthy. Whereas Blaxter’s Health & Lifestyles
survey (1989; 1990) found that people would often respond that
they were healthy despite having a disease. This was especially
true of the elderly, ‘those who themselves were in poor health or
suffering from chronic conditions were less likely to define health in
terms of illness’ (ibid 1990: 21). However McCloskey’s Irish
respondents were adamant that those with a serious illness were
not healthy and this sentiment was true even of those who had
experienced a major episode of illness themselves! For Irish
respondents being in pain from rheumatism or bronchitis was
viewed as being closely associated with being unhealthy. This was
especially so if it interfered with an individual’s ability to work or
perform their normal range of daily activities. While someone in a
wheelchair with a heavy cold was not deemed to be unhealthy, this
- 587 -