BEHAVIOR OF PHARMACEUTICALS AND SELF-CONC EPT IN ELDERLY PATIENTS WITH CHRONIC DISEASES

This research on a sample of 133 persons older than 60 years and suffe ring from chronic diseases, concerns their practices towards medicines . Various practices displayed can be grouped in three different ways a ccording to the regularity and the order of medicine taking, forgettin g, self-medication, etc.; they seem to be linked neither to sex or age of subjects nor to variables directly or indirectly affected by the d isease (number and type of medicines, gravity of the disease, subjecti ve health). The understanding of these differential practices is impro ved if we consider the self-concept of subjects, that is to say their different positions in an organized whole of personality traits; this position reflects traits that they recognize as being more or less con stitutive of their identity, that which motivates and gives sense to t he totality of their life conduct. Copyright (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.