Self‐Care and Illness Response Behaviors in a Frontier Area

ABSTRACT: Self‐care and illness response to a recent medical event were examined based on a mailed questionnaire to a random sample of 416 adults in a frontier area in north‐central Idaho. A total of 494 questionnaires were returned (45% response rate), and 78 were eliminated. Self‐care behaviors were classified as: (1) waiting to see what would happen, (2) purchasing or taking a nonprescription medication, (3) taking a prescription medication that was on hand, (4) taking both a prescription and a nonprescription medication, (5) contacting a physician, and (6) going to a hospital. These six variables were classified into three intervention constructs of no intervention (waiting), informal intervention (self‐medicating), and formal intervention (contacting a health care professional). Fifty‐six percent of the respondents reported self‐medicating behaviors. Correlation analysis indicated that initial self‐care and illness response behaviors in this frontier area were generally appropriate. Three multiple discriminant models were tested to differentiate those people who waited, self‐medicated, and contacted formal providers from those who did not. A significant model could not discriminate between those who waited and those who did not. Models for self‐medicating and contacting formal providers correctly classified cases 60 to 70 percent of the time. The analyses indicate that self‐medicating was more likely to be reported by younger individuals, by those who lived further from the hospital, who perceived their health status to be better, who reported less satisfaction with community health care services, and that the self‐medicating was appropriate. Those respondents most likely to contact the physician reported a lower perceived health status, a higher level of appropriateness of seeking formal health care services, a perceived physician shortage as a serious community problem, greater use of a number of prescription medications in the previous two weeks, and reported living in the community longer than those who did not. The implications of these findings are discussed.