Kaminskas Raimundas, Darulis Zilvinas
Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Kaunas University of Medicine, Kaunas, Lithuania.
Medicina (Kaunas). 2007;43(2):110-7.
To reveal the peculiarities of medical sociology introducing the application of social theories in analyzing public health and medicine.
Comparative and descriptive analysis of scientific references found and current situation.
During the last decade of the 20th century, the discussions about the sociology of health and medicine as separate discipline and its practical applications became more active. Main factors determined the growing importance of discipline were institutionalization of medicine and health care, changing patterns in doctor-patient relationships, different health perceptions, understanding of the influence of social factors on health, cardinal changes in the area of health technologies, consumeristic attitude towards health, appearance of market relationships within health care, and other global phenomena. In sociology, usual social theories such as structural functionalism, conflict, symbolic interaction, poststructuralism, feminist often attempt to explain the changes within health care. There is a relation of medical sociology and other types of sociology having common areas with medicine and health being analyzed in the article; social theories and their application in the field of health and medicine are being introduced attempting to explain the ongoing social changes in both Lithuania and the world.
More and more attention in various areas of medical activities is being paid to the social aspects (both individual and society levels) of these activities, and there is a shift from applied sociology towards medical one. Despite the cessations of the development of medical sociology as separate branch of sciences, the researches of recent years are demonstrating obvious approaching modern research issues and methods, which do exist in contemporary world. Such tendencies show the prompt approaching of the academic community of Lithuania the general scientific standards which are dominating in the globalization-effected world.
通过介绍社会理论在分析公共卫生和医学中的应用，揭示医学社会学的特点。
对所发现的科学参考文献和现状进行比较与描述性分析。
在20世纪的最后十年，关于健康与医学社会学作为一门独立学科及其实际应用的讨论变得更加活跃。决定该学科重要性不断增加的主要因素包括医学和医疗保健的制度化、医患关系模式的变化、不同的健康观念、对社会因素对健康影响的理解、健康技术领域的重大变革、对健康的消费主义态度、医疗保健领域市场关系的出现以及其他全球现象。在社会学中，诸如结构功能主义、冲突理论、符号互动理论、后结构主义、女性主义等常见社会理论常常试图解释医疗保健领域内的变化。本文分析了医学社会学与其他与医学和健康有共同研究领域的社会学类型之间的关系；介绍了社会理论及其在健康与医学领域的应用，试图解释立陶宛和世界范围内正在发生的社会变化。
在医疗活动的各个领域，人们越来越关注这些活动的社会层面（包括个人和社会层面），并且存在从应用社会学向医学社会学的转变。尽管医学社会学作为一门独立科学分支的发展有所停滞，但近年来的研究正明显地接近当代世界确实存在的现代研究问题和方法。这些趋势表明立陶宛学术界正在迅速接近在受全球化影响的世界中占主导地位的一般科学标准。
