Men's Health Help-Seeking - An Exploratory Study Marita Hennessy, Health Promotion, Education and Professional Studies, University of Limerick Patricia Mannix McNamara, Education and Professional Studies, University of Limerick
Background Men have limited contact with GPs, are reluctant primary care users and often seek help late in the course of illness. It has been argued that men’s health is under-researched clinically and in health promotion terms. While available research in Ireland has elicited men’s attitudes towards [their own] health and accessing health services, it has not determined the factors that men take into account when assessing their own health status; the criteria men use to decide whether or not to seek formal health care; or the factors that inform men's perception of what constitutes an acceptable threshold for seeking help. Thus this study set out to explore these aspects of men’s health.
Aim
Findings Age strongly influenced attitude to health and help seeking (invincibility)
To establish how men can be empowered to engage with their health in the context of help seeking.
Men endure symptoms and become self-reliant
Health and emotional illiteracy
Objectives Men’s Health – Help Seeking Behaviours
• To determine the factors that men take into account when assessing their own health status; and within this to elicit whether men
Embodiment as a health indicator
Reluctance to access GP or other services
view health/illness differently; • To elicit the criteria men use to decide whether or not to seek formal health care;
Increased attention to men’s health issues acknowledged and welcomed
Barriers Structural
Legitimisation required for men to seek help
* Personal *Social
• To explore the factors that inform men’s perception of what constitutes an acceptable threshold for seeking help for different conditions and in different contexts.
Methodology
Triggers
Health Assessment Criteria
* Perceived severity
*Absence of pain/illness
* Persistent symptoms
*Fitness
Prompting by significant other
Lifestyle choices (diet, smoking, alcohol)
Direct/indirect health crisis
Body weight
Milestones (fatherhood, age)
Mental health and wellbeing
Media campaigns
Ability to do things
Qualitative
Family history (X)
Conclusion Focus groups
Semi-structured interviews
Purposive/convenience sampling + Theoretical saturation
The results of this study indicate that men’s attitudes and behaviours to health seeking are complex. Gender socialisation and psychological theories such as the Health Belief Model and the Theory of Reasoned Action can illuminate men’s help seeking behaviours.
Recommendations 18 males Cork, Dublin, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Waterford, Wexford
26 males (3 groups) Cork, Limerick, Tipperary 20 females (2 groups) Cork, Tipperary
Further information Marita Hennessy
[email protected]
Policy – Incorporate gender mainstreaming into policy making. Launch national men’s health strategy with appropriate frameworks and resources. Practice – Health services providers and health professionals should consider men’s complex health attitudes and behaviours when designing, planning and implementing men’s health programmes/services. Educate men from an early age on health and emotional literacy. Reconfigure social norms of masculinity. Research – Extent and perceptions of PSA testing in Ireland. Help seeking attitudes and behaviours from a female perspective.
