Illness management strategies among Chinese immigrants living with arthritis
Section snippets
Methods
Due to the exploratory nature of the research question, this was a qualitative study using the grounded theory approach. Grounded theory is an inductive approach that uses a systematic set of procedures to develop a theory or model about basic social processes (Glaser, 1992). It is discovered, developed, and provisionally verified through systematic data collection and analysis of data pertaining to that phenomenon. This approach was chosen as opposed to other qualitative methods because its
Findings
Demographic data, collected from the 19 Chinese immigrants, are included in Table 1. We do not know how many patients were requested to participate and how many refused to participate in the study, as we do not know how many information letters were circulated by Chinese healers, rheumatologists and others.
Illness management strategies emerging in the analysis included self-care remedies, consulting Western physicians, and consulting Chinese doctors. The analysis indicated that factors that
Discussion
Unlike many of the existing illness behavior models which were designed to identify factors underlying utilization of Western medicine (Wolinsky, 1980; Ogden, 1996; Rosenstock, 1990; Schwarzer, 1992; McHugh & Vallis, 1986; Toumishey, 1993; Stewart et al., 1995; Anderson et al., 1985), this substantive theory explains that Chinese immigrants use both Western and Chinese medicine and illustrates the process of continuously evaluating Western and Chinese medicine. The illness management process
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