istics which showed that 97 percent of these patients experienced symptoms for periods from two days to two weeks prior to seeking emergency room treatment.
The foregoing findings raise the question: What is the difference in health beliefs of elderly COPD patients who wait until they are in crisis before they seek treatment and patients that do not wait until they are in crisis? Stating this question in operational terms, it can be asked: What is the difference between the health beliefs of patients admitted to the hospital under conditions of emergency room visits and elderly COPD patients admitted to the hospital through regular channels such as referral by their physicians? Answering this question constituted the study's research problem.
This study's conceptual underpinnings rest on the Health Belief Model (Becker, 1974; Janz & Becker, 1984; Rosenstock, 1974). So that the study may be placed in context of existing theory, this model and its application to instances of chronic illness is delineated here.
The Health Belief Model holds that seeking health care depends upon three primary factors, motivation, susceptibility, and cost/benefit ratio (Becker, 1978). The first of these is motivation. In order to seek health care, people must have sufficient motivation (health concern) otherwise medical issues are not viewed as personally salient. The second important factor is susceptibility. In order to seek health care, people must believe that they are vulnerable to a serious health problem; their degree of vulnerability is commonly referred to as their level of "perceived threat.
The third factors discussed by Becker is the cost-benefit ration. In order to seek health care, people must believe that the care benefits them by reducing their level of perceived threat, and that it does so at a cost that is acceptable to them. Cost barriers include a variety of factors but the most common factor is financial outlay.