[Expectations of the patient's role].

This study is part of a research on sociological aspects of the doctor-patient relationship. Some previous results have been already published. This paper aims to analyse the influence of some basic variables such as age, sex and socioeconomic level on normative expectations concerning to the patient's role. This role was defined in terms of Parsons' sociological theory, which provides the content of the 20 items of a Likert-type scale constructed by Kassebaum and Baumann. By means of a factorial analysis they discovered four underlying dimensions of the expectations of the patient's role: Dependence, Reciprocity, Role performance and Denial. This scale and a questionnaire built by the author were given to a sample group of 302 subjects, present or potential patients, inhabitants of Buenos Aires city. The results show that expectations of the patient's role are influenced mainly by the subject's socioeconomic level.