Article ID: CBB001214382

Why Sociologists Abandoned the Sick Role Concept (2014)

unapi

The concept of the sick role entered sociology in 1951 when Talcott Parsons creatively separated the sick person out of the doctor--patient dyad. The idea became fundamental in the subdiscipline of medical sociology. By the 1990s, the concept had almost disappeared from the research literature. Beyond the generational and theoretical changes that explain how the sick role idea could become irrelevant or unnecessary to sociologists, there were two immediate factors: the negative politicization of the concept and the shift of medical sociologists to a focus on applied health behavior. In the later, fragmented discipline of sociology, final, total abandonment was still uncertain.

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Authors & Contributors
Lerner, Barron H.
Domenico Roccolo
Willis, Martin
Waddington, Keir
Tribe, Keith
Stolberg, Michael
Concepts
Physicians; doctors
Disease and diseases
Patients
Medicine
Sociology
Medicine and literature
Time Periods
20th century, late
20th century
20th century, early
19th century
17th century
Early modern
Places
Germany
United States
South Africa
Rome (Italy)
India
Great Britain
Institutions
Universität Göttingen
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