Department of Psychology, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2015 Jan;70(1):57-66. doi: 10.1093/geronb/gbu058. Epub 2014 Jun 22.
Relationships among cognitive and motivational factors in predicting medical help-seeking for Alzheimer's disease (AD) symptoms were tested.
Community residents awaiting jury service (N = 280) completed questionnaires, including responses to a vignette depicting prototypical early symptoms of AD in a hypothetical mother. Cognitive responses to the vignette included AD symptom identification and AD attribution. Affective-motivational responses to vignettes were symptom impact and behavior appraisals. General knowledge of AD was assessed. Intention to seek medical help was the dependent variable.
The impact and identification of AD symptoms, appraisals of risk, and attribution of the scenario to AD were modest, yet all contributed to prediction of medical-help-seeking intentions. The best fitting model had distinct but interrelated cognitive and motivational paths explaining 49% of the variability in medical help-seeking. Motivational variables had particularly important direct and indirect effects on help-seeking.
Findings are interpreted as evidence of the importance of motivational as well as cognitive aspects of perceptions of illness behavior in another person. The substantial impact of the tested variables on the desired outcome of medical help-seeking may suggest options for public health efforts to enhance early medical help-seeking for AD that sets the stage for early intervention.
测试认知和动机因素与预测阿尔茨海默病（AD）症状的医疗求助之间的关系。
等候陪审团服务的社区居民（N=280）完成了问卷，包括对描述假设母亲出现典型早期 AD 症状的情景案例的反应。对情景案例的认知反应包括 AD 症状识别和 AD 归因。对情景案例的情感动机反应包括症状影响和行为评估。AD 的一般知识也进行了评估。医疗求助的意图是因变量。
AD 症状的影响和识别、风险评估以及将案例归因于 AD，这些都有一定的作用，但都有助于预测医疗求助的意图。最佳拟合模型具有独特但相互关联的认知和动机路径，解释了医疗求助的 49%的可变性。动机变量对求助有特别重要的直接和间接影响。
研究结果表明，在另一个人对疾病行为的认知中，动机和认知方面都很重要。测试变量对医疗求助这一预期结果有很大影响，这可能为公共卫生部门增强对 AD 的早期医疗求助提供了选择，从而为早期干预奠定了基础。
