The 20th annual Symposium will be held on Thursday, April 23, 2009.

Using Gender Differences in Lay-Representation of Diabetes to Predict Health Behaviors
Norris 102, 1:30 PM

Brittnay  Williams,   '09 48
   Major: Psychology
   Hometown: Bay City, MI

Sponsor(s): Mary Jenson
Support:  

Abstract: 
Lay representations or schemas about health and illness help us to interpret symptoms, understand illness and cope with illness. Leventhal, Nerenz, & Steele (1984) identified five dimensions or types of schemas that individuals use to understand and label illness such as the symptoms associated with an illness, causes of an illness, the likely duration on an illness, and how and if the illness can be cured. The Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ) by Weinman & Petrie (1997) was constructed as a method of measuring these constructs. Figueiras & Alves (2007) revised the IPQ-R to study healthy individuals’ illness perceptions of AIDS, skin cancer, and tuberculosis. However, their study did not examine gender differences nor does it examine the perceptions of the third leading cause of death, diabetes.

The present study investigates healthy individuals’ perceptions of diabetes, the gender differences in lay-representations for the illness, and the association between reported health behaviors. A modified version of the IPQ-RH and a health behavior survey was used to investigate these relationships between participants. The modified IPQ-RH and a health behavior questionnaire were presented to the participants via an on-line survey. The IPQ-RH dimensions account for a significant portion of the variance in health behaviors. Moreover, the gender differences found in the illness representations may partially explain gender variations in the trajectories for diabetes.

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