Illness behavior and psychiatry.

The sociologic term illness behavior has been valuable in putting medical and psychiatric concept of illness in a broader perspective. The term is increasingly popular with psychiatrists, who use it in various ways, but particularly for patients who make considerable demands on their doctors. It has been seen as a symptom, a syndrome, or as a dimension. It is useful to see many patients, especially those seen within general hospitals, as suffering from "problems of illness behavior," but some other usages are idiosyncratic and unhelpful. We should avoid arbitrary statements about "abnormality" and ensure that the general term illness behavior is not used as a synonym for consultation behavior. Quantitative assessment requires multiple measures of particular aspects of illness behavior chosen for the particular purpose of the investigation.