Division of Community Health Sciences, St George's, University of London.
Health (London). 2010 Mar;14(2):213-31. doi: 10.1177/1363459309347479.
The last 40 years have witnessed substantial changes to the experience of later life. Health and life expectancy have improved and the emergence of a putative third age has allowed post-working life to move beyond being a residual social category to become an arena in which later life lifestyles can be constructed. Greater emphasis is now placed on expectations of self-agency and choice. Allied to this is the growing role of consumerism as a way of organizing key aspects of social life. Not only do these changes place increased emphasis on individual responsibility for health, but they also engage individuals in various forms of health consumerism.This study draws on these aspects of contemporary society to provide an explanatory framework for understanding older people's engagement with, and consumption of non-prescription medicines. We present a qualitative study in which we interviewed 22 men and women aged 60 plus who were purchasing or interested in purchasing non-prescription medicines, including complementary and alternative medicines. Our findings suggest that the use of non-prescription medicines is both pluralistic and makeshift. Moreover, while this pluralism led to tensions with conventional bio-medicine, conventional bio-medicine still maintained the legitimacy of its knowledge base. Self-care using non-prescription medicines appeared more governed by hope than by evidence or knowledge of the treatments concerned.We conclude that such pluralism of approach reflects the growing consumerism in health and self-care and that older people may in fact be similar to other age groups in terms of their approach to such commodification.
过去的 40 年见证了晚年生活体验的重大变化。健康状况和预期寿命都得到了改善，所谓的第三年龄的出现使得工作后的生活不再仅仅是一个残留的社会范畴，而是成为构建晚年生活方式的舞台。现在更加注重自我代理和选择的期望。与此相关的是，消费主义作为组织社会生活关键方面的一种方式的作用日益增强。这些变化不仅更加重视个人对健康的责任，而且还使个人参与各种形式的健康消费主义。本研究借鉴了当代社会的这些方面，为理解老年人对非处方药的参与和消费提供了一个解释框架。我们进行了一项定性研究，采访了 22 名 60 岁以上的男性和女性，他们正在购买或有兴趣购买非处方药，包括补充和替代药物。我们的研究结果表明，非处方药的使用既多元化又临时拼凑。此外，尽管这种多元化与传统的生物医学产生了紧张关系，但传统的生物医学仍然保持着其知识库的合法性。使用非处方药进行自我护理似乎更多地受到希望的驱动，而不是受到有关治疗的证据或知识的驱动。我们的结论是，这种方法的多元化反映了健康和自我护理领域日益增强的消费主义，而且老年人在对待这种商品化的方式上可能与其他年龄组相似。
