Negative thinking
When we’re bombarded daily with scare stories, it’s all too easy to start worrying about our health and start believing that every twinge and twitch is a symptom of something serious. In fact, this kind of negative thinking could actually inhibit your recovery from a real illness.
Researchers from the University of Auckland and the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College, London, reviewed existing studies on patients’ perceptions of illness, looking at what impact additional medical conditions, stress levels and social support have on a person’s sense of well-being when they’re ill. They found that the perception – how we think an illness will affect our lives, what causes it, how long it will last, how it can be treated – can even have a bigger role in determining our recovery than the severity of the disease itself.
This isn’t simply a case of negative thinking bringing on negative effects, say the researchers; rather it’s about how perception affects decision-making. For example, if a patient doesn’t have good rapport with and trust in their doctor, even if that doctor provides excellent care and treatment, the patient is less likely to follow the treatment programme and then it’s more likely to fail. So if you go to the doctor with a digestive disorder and they say you need to eat more fibre, but you don’t trust their diagnosis or advice, you’re less likely to follow that advice. The result? Your digestive disorder remains the same or worsens.
For this reason, the researchers suggest that doctors should take a patient’s perceptions of their illness seriously as it could have a dramatic impact on treatment success. Asking patients how they view their illness would give the doctor an opportunity to correct any inaccurate beliefs, provide arguments or evidence to back their opinion and explain exactly how and why the suggestive treatment is likely to be most effective.
We can all help ourselves by asking questions. If you’re not sure a diagnosis is correct, explain why to your doctor and ask them to explain their opinion. Don’t be shy about putting forward the reasons why you may doubt the diagnosis so that your doctor can reassure you if appropriate. That way, you’re more likely to get treatment that will be effective – partly because it’s more likely to be the right diagnosis and partly because you’ll be committed to following doctor’s orders!