preconceived ideas that may be expressed through the structure of their questions,
through their responses to the interviewee, or through their analysis of the
transcripts.FURTHER READING
➧ Bird, J.E. and Podmore, V.N. (1990) Children’s understanding of health and
illness, Psychology and Health, 4: 175–85.
This paper examines how children make sense of illnesses and discusses the
possible developmental transition from a dichotomous model (ill versus healthy)
to one based on a continuum.
➧ de Ridder, D. (1997) What is wrong with coping assessment? A review of
conceptual and methodological issues, Psychology and Health, 12: 417–31.
This paper explores the complex and ever-growing area of coping and focuses
on the issues surrounding the questions ‘What is coping?’ and ‘How should it be
measured?’
➧ Leventhal, H., Meyer, D. and Nerenz, D. (1980) The common sense representa-
tion of illness danger, in S. Rachman (ed.), Medical Psychology, Vol.2, pp. 7–30.
New York: Pergamon Press.
This paper outlines the concept of illness cognitions and discusses the implica-
tions of how people make sense of their illness for their physical and psycho-
logical well-being.
➧ Petrie, K.J. and Weinman, J.A. (1997) Perceptions of health and illness.
Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers.
This is an edited collection of projects using the self-regulatory model as their
theoretical framework.
➧ Taylor, S.E. (1983) Adjustment to threatening events: A theory of cognitive
adaptation, American Psychologist, 38: 1161–73.
This is an excellent example of an interview based study. It describes and
analyses the cognitive adaptation theory of coping with illness and emphasizes
the central role of illusions in making sense of the imbalance created by the
absence of health.
ILLNESS COGNITIONS 73