Health and Sickness: The Choice of Treatment

In looking at the complex relationship between the demand and the need for medical care, the use of the services ? reflecting human response to stress and disease is of crucial importance. This book is a clear description with detailed findings of a carefully constructed study carried out in South London. It casts some light on the use of the medical services by investigating the patients' own concept of their state of health and the steps they have taken to deal with their complaints. Many interesting facts are produced: only 5% of the population consider themselves free from complaints and of the remainder, 76% had taken some form of action ? 60% resorting to self-medication. The study found that the differ-