Lay self-care in health: the views and perspectives of Israeli laypeople.

A random sample of 407 Israel laypeople was interviewed about several dimensions of their attitudes toward lay self-care in health. The dimensions studied were perceptions of laypeople's motives in undertaking self-care, views regarding the division of responsibility for individual health between laypeople and professionals, and opinions regarding the effects of lay autonomy and initiatives in health care and seven specific self-care behaviors. These attitudes were analyzed in relation to sociodemographic and health-related variables. The findings suggest that Israeli laypeople take a medically-dependent view of health care, and indicate that self-care in health is not a particularly salient or widely advocated behavior. This research complements previous studies on Israeli physicians and allied health professionals' attitudes towards self-care.