The Role of Images on Illness Behaviour: Interdisciplinary Theory, Evidence, and Ideas

Abstract

If illness behaviour is to be fully understood, the social and behavioural sciences must work together to understand the wider forms in which illness is experienced and communicated with individuals and society. The current paper synthesised literature across social and behavioural sciences exploring illness experience and communication through physical and mental images. It argues that images may have the capacity to embody and influence beliefs, emotions, and health outcomes. While four commonalities exist, facilitating understandings of illness behaviour across the fields (i.e., understanding the importance of the patient perspective; perception of the cause, sense of identity with the illness, consequences, and level of control; health beliefs influencing illness experience, behaviours, and outcomes; and understanding illness beliefs and experiences through an almost exclusive focus on the written or spoken word), we will focus on exploring the fourth commonality. The choice to focus on the role of images on illness behaviour is due to the proliferation of interventions using image-based approaches. While these novel approaches show merit, there is a scarcity of theoretical underpinnings and explorations into the ways in which these are developed and into how people perceive and understand their own illnesses using image representations. The current paper identified that the use of images can elucidate patient and practitioner understandings of illness, facilitate communication, and potentially influence illness behaviours. It further identified commonalities across the social and behavioural sciences to facilitate theory informed understandings of illness behaviour which could be applied to visual intervention development to improve health outcomes.