[Qualitative research investigating patterns of health care behavior among Korean patients with chronic hepatitis B].
OBJECTIVE
This ethnograpy was done to explore patterns of health care behavior in patients with chronic health problems.


METHODS
The participants were 15 patients with chronic hepatitis B and 2 family members. Among the patients 4 had progressed to liver cirrhosis and liver cancer. Data were collected from iterative fieldwork in a department of internal medicine of I hospital. Data were analyzed using text analysis and taxonomic methods.


RESULTS
Illness and disease, relationship between health care givers and clients, and communication patterns between health professions and clients were discussed as the context of health care behavior. Health care behavior of the participants was categorized by its focus: every day work centered, body centered, organ centered, and pathology centered.


CONCLUSIONS
Participants' health care behavior was guided by folk health concept and constructed in the sociocultural context. Folk etiology, pathology, and interpretation of one's symptoms were influencing factors in illness behavior. These findings must be a cornerstone of culture specific care for the chronic diseases.
Yang
Jin-Hyang
JH
Department of Nursing, Inje University, Busan, Korea.
Cho
Myung-Ok
MO
Lee
Hae-Ok
HO
D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D044466:Asian People; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003142:Communication; D005195:Family Relations; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D019694:Hepatitis B, Chronic / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008103:Liver Cirrhosis / Q000209:etiology; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000209:etiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D036301:Qualitative Research; D056910:Republic of Korea