Locating illness behavior as a social practice among women in Jammu city

Abstract

AbstractThis paper seeks to understand the patterns of social experiences of women patients by means of an empirical study undertaken in the Jammu region of the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir in India. Social factors play an immense role in determining the onset and management of lifestyle diseases among South Asian women. These social factors entail some peculiar entities that require detailed investigation. Data were collected in Government Medical College Hospital, Jammu, and its allied hospitals. Results show that for women, social factors and their impact on illness patterns have a strong bearing on their care‐seeking behavior. Care‐seeking behavior of women in this part of the country is determined by their social status and is determined by the meanings that are provided to these illness experiences. Therefore, physical pain and related symptoms were not found to impact these women as much as changes in their socio‐familial status due to the onset of lifestyle diseases. These diseases can broadly be categorized into three categories, namely, socially stigmatising diseases, socially irrelevant diseases, and socio‐economically burdensome diseases. However, these categories are not fixed for a particular disease. As the experiences of the women undergo change, so does the categorization of the disease. Hence, diabetes may be a socially irrelevant disease at one point of time. Nevertheless, as the condition of the patient deteriorates, diabetes becomes a socio‐economically burdensome disease. That is why lifestyle diseases keeps circulating from one category to another every time a patient encounters a new result arising from a lifestyle disease.