Observations of Abortive Illness Behavior

Abstract

An observational study of prepatient illness behavior was terminated because it failed to yield comprehensive data on illness experience in a large, municipally run lodging house. However, the data collected during pilot work provide some insights on illness behavior likely to be underemphasized in retrospective interview studies. Observations confirmed Zola's findings on the extensiveness of accommodation to long-term symptoms and on the role of triggers in breaking that accommodation. Yet in specifying Zola's conclusions, symptoms were accommodated selectively, and work-related concerns, a frequent trigger in Zola's study, were found to promote as well as terminate accommodation to symptoms. Finally and most critically, triggers did not work automatically; the intention to seek a medical consultation had a provisional character, as help-seeking was always open to disruption and premature discontinuation due to the intrusion of new topical relevances.