Seeking help for illness: the roles of cultural orientation and illness cognition

A group of 112 Chinese Singaporean undergraduates and 109 of their parents completed a questionnaire on disease perceptions, help-seeking behaviour, Chinese cultural values and personal background. Analysis of these data using structural equation modelling indicated that individuals high in Chinese cultural orientation were more likely to describe diseases using Chinese health concepts and less likely to describe diseases in terms of physical causality or chronicity. Illness concepts, in turn, related to illness behaviour in that participants making greater use of Chinese health concepts were significantly more likely to state that they would seek treatment from a sinseh (practitioner of Chinese medicine) and less likely to go to an allopathic physician whereas participants tending to describe diseases as physically caused indicated greater likelihood of seeking help from an allopathic physician. Also, cultural orientation was positively related to seeking help from a sinseh, independent of its relationship to illness concepts.