Illness representation of arterial hypertension in a sample of health professionals and the general public.

This work studies the illness representation of high blood pressure in a sample of primary health care professionals and the general public in order to identify possible differences. The examination of illness representation was carried out using a Spanish adaptation of Turk et al.'s ( 1986 ) Implicit Model of Illness Questionnaire. This questionnaire assesses nine components: identity, cause, incapacity, cure, personal responsibility, controllability, changeability and chance. The results showed statistically significant differences between the general public and doctors in all the components except controllability. Results also show that nurses' responses are closer to those of the general public in the social and psychological aspects, but not in the technical knowledge of hypertension.