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WHAT DO PEOPLE BECOME PATIETS? WEIGHING UP THE COSTS AND BENEFITS
When deciding whether or not to become a patient the costs and the benefits of assuming the role are assessed. The person with the symptom may be too busy to become a patient, may have just started a new job and be eager to create a good impression, may live too far away from the medical facilities, nave young children to care for or be reluctant to lose money by staying away from work. Commonly, people who are in most need of medical help are the ones least able to receive it. Tudor Hart (1971) has referred to this situation as the 'inverse care law'. Disease and disability are concentrated among the poorest members of society, yet these are the very people who find it most difficult to become patients. The lack of a car can make access to the medical facilities tedious or impossible, employers may be less sympathetic than those of professional workers and poor people are more likely to be single parents and less able than others to afford help. In addition deprived "eighbourhoods usually have the worst health facilities. In such circumstances good health may not be the person's main goal in life, a fact which Scambler (1982) believes should not be viewed as irrational.
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