Health Psychology Response Past Conducted Research Led

Health Psychology Response

Past conducted research led experts to believe that men as a gender tend to not seek medical attention as often as they should for various health concerns. The purpose of this research study was to determine why it is that men under-use primary health services. Since reasons for this attitude towards healthcare are psychological, it necessitates a type of study which is subjective and based upon the individual opinions and experiences of the subjects involved. Researchers are particularly interested in the past negative experiences that these male subjects may have had with healthcare practitioners which would add to this phenomenon of under-utilization.

While conducting the investigation, researchers conducted "semi-structured" interviews with male GPs who were between ages 35 and 53. The only male GPs that researchers could get to participate in the experiment were persons that were some way already known to researchers. The writers of the document admit themselves that this creates a bias because the men known to the researchers would more than likely already hold views that would be similar to those of the researchers themselves. Like-minded thinking would create a sense of camaraderie which would encourage a dialogue and continue the acquaintanceship to a position where the GP would be confident in participating. This is a concern because in an ideal research experiment the researchers and participants should have no pre-existing relationship which could impact the findings. Similarly, the fact that the GPs investigated were in such a small number, would make it seem that the findings could not be universally applied.

Part 3:

As the topic of the research conducted was highly subjective, so too the analysis of the collected data was done in a subjective manner. The interviews of the ten subjects were transcribed and copies given out to researchers, a method referred to as IPA. The contents of the interviews were then analyzed for coinciding terms, themes, and experiences to find some correlating factor. Although the research method here was thorough and researchers made a concentrated effort to eliminate bias by using transcripts, removing the text from the tone and emotion of the interview subject invariably alters the analysis of the presented data.

Part 4:

The three main themes of the research document include male under-usage of medical facilities, the need of the researchers to find suitable research subjects, and the analysis of the data which linked male under-utilization with the male psychological need to be dominant rather than weak or enfeebled. The purpose of the experiment was to investigate potential reasons why males went to the doctor far less often than they should. This is a subjective question and dependant on individual experience and perception. It seems that the researcher's interest in the question was more to confirm their former opinions than in investigating a question free from bias. This is suspected because of the way that they acquired participants and the limited number of people who participated in the study. It would be foolish to postulate a potential reason for action based upon the survey of only ten participants. In their analysis, the researchers put a lot of emphasis on the male psychology as the reason for under-using healthcare facilities. To be ill is to be weak and to seek aid for the weakened body is weaker still. As a truly masculine and male individual, the man must avoid seeking help for as long as possible. This is an intriguing concept, but is not given enough evidence by the researchers.