The FINANCIAL -- What you think about your illness matters just as much, if not more, in determining your health according to a new report by researchers from The University of Auckland and King’s College London, according to The University of Auckland.

The paper “Patients’ perceptions of their illness: The dynamo of volition in health care” which reviews many studies examining the impact of perception on health was published in the Association in Psychological Science journal Current Directions in Psychological Science this week.

Findings show that people’s perceptions about their illness bear a direct relationship to several important health outcomes, including how well they are able to function, their use of health care, adherence to treatment plans, the duration of the illness and even mortality. Moreover, some research suggests that how a person views their illness may play a bigger role in determining their health outcomes than the actual severity of the disease.

The review shows that illness perceptions change rapidly in response to diagnostic results and can be associated with emotional distress, recovery, and disability, as well as with treatment-related behaviour such as adherence.

The authors suggest that simple interventions such as conversations between health professionals and patients which elicit what people really think about their illness might identify patients at risk of coping poorly with the demands of their illness, allow erroneous beliefs to be corrected and improve treatment regimes.

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