The development of a method for measuring anticipated illness behaviour in three common injuries

This note outlines the rationale, development and validation of three injury scenarios as objective measures of anticipated illness behaviour. The measures were originally developed to consider differences in illness behaviour with distance from medical services in rural and remote areas of Queensland, Australia. However, the measures have a more universal applicability than the purpose for which they were developed. Unlike other measures of illness behaviour, the scenarios each incorporate a number of progressively worsening stages which permit the mapping of changes in individual or group behaviour. By working through conditions stage by stage, the likelihood of individual variations in interpretation of condition severity is greatly reduced and so a better understanding of people's responses to these conditions is obtained. In a survey of 800 rural households, each scenario met the proposed criteria of: (i) increasing urgency of action with increasing condition severity; and (ii) increasing agreement about urgency of action with increasing severity. The fractured limb scenario was perceived by respondents (in terms of urgency and agreement about type of action) as the most serious condition. There was little difference in perceived seriousness for the other two conditions.