IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v52y2001i5p695-706.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Primary care as intersecting social worlds

Author

Listed:
  • Tovey, Philip
  • Adams, Jon

Abstract

An enhanced role for primary health care (PHC) is currently a matter of political priority in the UK. This higher profile is drawing attention to a range of unresolved challenges and issues, relating to both the structure and content of provision, which currently permeate the system. Running in parallel with this is a recognition that: to date, PHC has been under-researched; that, as a result, our understanding of it is frequently poor; and that, as a consequence, fresh perspectives are needed in order to effectively research this uncertain, evolving and increasingly important healthcare sector. In this paper we argue that social worlds theory (SWT) provides, albeit in a suitably modified form, an ideal conceptual framework for the analysis of contemporary primary care. SWT is an approach which assumes complexity and constant evolution, and its core concepts are directed towards unravelling the consequences of encounters between different interest groups -- something which is of particular utility at this time given the increasing attention to user participation, and an ongoing questioning of established patterns of professional authority. It is an approach which has rarely been employed empirically, even beyond medicine. In order to illustrate the wide relevance of the approach, we discuss how it can facilitate research at all levels of PHC: i.e., in relation to aspects of medical practice (the case of medically unexplained symptoms); shifts in service organisation (changing professional roles and the introduction of policy reforms); and issues which straddle both organisation and content (the increasing use of complementary medicine in primary care). In each case the approach is able to embrace the complexity of situations characterised by the intersection of professional and lay social worlds and is able to provide the conceptual tools through which resultant processes can be tracked and investigated.

Suggested Citation

  • Tovey, Philip & Adams, Jon, 2001. "Primary care as intersecting social worlds," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 52(5), pages 695-706, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:52:y:2001:i:5:p:695-706
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(00)00179-9
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kringos, Dionne S. & Boerma, Wienke G.W. & van der Zee, Jouke & Groenewegen, Peter P., 2013. "Political, cultural and economic foundations of primary care in Europe," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 9-17.
    2. Demers, Marie, 2004. "The predictability of individual primary care costs and its impact on managed care plans," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 345-352, June.
    3. McDonald, Ruth & Cheraghi-Sohi, Sudeh & Bayes, Sara & Morriss, Richard & Kai, Joe, 2013. "Competing and coexisting logics in the changing field of English general medical practice," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 47-54.
    4. Theobald, Hildegard, 2004. "Entwicklung des Qualifikationsbedarfs im Gesundheitssektor: Professionalisierungsprozesse in der Physiotherapie und Dentalhygiene im europäischen Vergleich," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Labor Market Policy and Employment SP I 2004-104, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:52:y:2001:i:5:p:695-706. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.