An illness behavior paradigm: a conceptual exploration of a situational-adaptation perspective.

A situational-adaption perspective is developed as a basis of an analytic illness behavior paradigm. The situational-adaption perspective is derived from the ideas of Dubos wherein health is viewed as adaption and the interactionist conception of the defined social situation. The situational-adaption perspective is then applied to symptomatic episodes where signs and symptoms are contained in everyday situations without direct medical consultation, everyday illness behavior; to illness experiences where coping necessitates medical consultation, acute illness behavior; to chronic diseases where adjustment and long-term care are necessary, chronic illness behavior; and to emergent life threatening illness episodes which require definitive medical care, life threatening illness behavior. For each of these illness behavior types a primary process, role behavior and patient-practitioner relations are specified.