Illness Behavior: capacity to distinguish groups of patients psychosocially

The need of characterizing psychosocially different groups of patients has lead to the use of several concepts, among which Illness Behavior could he highlighted. We have assessed the capacity of this concept to differentiate among three groups of patients (stabilized COPD, acute COPD and surgical l ung cancer). illness Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ) has been employed, and Di scriminant Analysis has been applied. The results indicated that this conce pt distinguishes among patients with diverse pathologies, especially among those who suffer a chronic and acute disease.