Including illness behavior in the assessment of endocrine patients

The concept of illness behavior was introduced by Mechanic and Volkart in the 1960s and refers to the ways in which individuals experience, perceive, evaluate and respond to their own health status. Accordingly, behavioral responses to the same illness or the same physical symptom may vary widely among subjects and greatly affect the disease course and outcome. In past decades, important lines of research have been concerned with illness perception, coping, risk behavior, attendance at medical facilities, treatment-seeking behavior, and treatment adherence. They have, however, mostly investigated single aspects separately. We have recently suggested that the concept of illness behavior may provide a unifying framework to observations and findings that would otherwise remain scattered and unrelated in the medical literature. Aspects of illness behavior that have important clinical implications have been investigated in the setting of diabetes but have been otherwise understudied in endocrine disorders. Some issues are worth considering to improve effectiveness in the longitudinal management of endocrine patients.