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Understanding patients: Implicit personality theory and the general practitioner
Author(s) -
Bower Peter
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
british journal of medical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.102
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 2044-8341
pISSN - 0007-1129
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8341.1998.tb01376.x
Subject(s) - psychology , categorization , personality , variety (cybernetics) , function (biology) , social psychology , epistemology , cognitive psychology , computer science , artificial intelligence , philosophy , evolutionary biology , biology
The patient‐centred general practitioner (GP) is expected to advance beyond biomedical illness categorization (the disease‐centred method) and develop an understanding of the ‘whole person’ in order to inform clinical decision making. This paper argues that researchers cannot yet provide GPs with a relevant, reliable and predictive model of individual behaviour that would apply unproblematically to their everyday clinical work. Without such a system, it is hypothesized that GPs will continue to ue their own implicit personality theories and models of human behaviour in their attempts to understand and predict patient behaviour. Research into such theories from a variety of perspectives could illuminate their content, structure, validity and function in general practice.