Health and Illness: a Dialectical Concept Analysis
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Abstract
ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to describe and understand people's conceptions of health and illness. The analysis of the concepts is based on unstructured interviews with men and women aged 30 and 50. The approach of the study is hermeneutical, and the framework for the concept analysis is formed by Hegel's dialectical logic. The interviewees' definitions of health and illness were comprehensive, describing the physical, psychological and social aspects of human existence. The definitions of health ranged from holistic to one‐dimensional. Illness was understood as something more than a disease or its physical symptoms. The analysis also indicated that the interviewees did not equate non‐health with illness or non‐illness with health. Including the categories of non‐health and non‐illness added a new dimension to the analysis of health and illness, enriching the semantic content of the concepts studied.