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Degrees of Medicalization: The Case of Infertility Health-Seeking.

Arthur L GreilKatherine M JohnsonMichele H LowryJulia McQuillanKathleen S Slauson-Blevins
Published in: The Sociological quarterly (2019)
We examine responses to infertility among a sample of 2,361 women with infertility from the National Survey of Fertility Barriers. Latent class analysis uncovered seven latent classes of behavioral response which can be arranged in a rough continuum from least medicalized to most medicalized response. We then aggregated these seven categories into three schemas representing various degrees of medicalization. Women in each class combine treatment-seeking, knowledge-seeking, socio-emotional support seeking, and non-medical solution-seeking strategies. Even women pursuing the greatest degree of medicalization in their health-seeking (e.g., fertility treatments, assisted reproduction) made use of a variety of medical and non-medical health-seeking resources.
Keyphrases
  • mental health
  • healthcare
  • polycystic ovary syndrome
  • public health
  • type diabetes
  • risk assessment
  • metabolic syndrome
  • insulin resistance
  • cervical cancer screening
  • breast cancer risk
  • solid state
  • smoking cessation