Understanding the dynamics of illness and help-seeking: event-structure analysis and a Cambodian-American narrative of "spirit invasion".
Event structure analysis (ESA) and its computer analog, ETHNO, represent a class of relatively new methodological approaches that make it possible to capture the complexity of help-seeking interactions. Using narrative data from a study of Cambodian-American help-seeking interactions within a circumscribed illness episode, this paper demonstrates the feasibility of using ESA/ETHNO to illuminate how event sequence, operant illness beliefs, structural conditions, and human agency interpenetrate and shape the occurrence and timing of pivotal actions and the denouement of a help-seeking episode.
Uehara
E S
ES
University of Washington, School of Social Work, Seattle, USA. eddi@u.washington.edu
D000884:Anthropology, Cultural / Q000379:methods*; D002160:Cambodia / Q000208:ethnology; D003469:Culture; D005192:Family Health; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000208:ethnology*; D014481:United States