Patrones de comportamiento de una población ante la salud

Abstract

The knowledge of the behavior before health of each population is important in order to achieve the integration of the popular medicine with the official medicine. In order to get that knowledge a pattern of healthy behavior was defined, and the patterns of true behavior were investigated. The population studied in 1997 was 15 years old of age or more and was assigned to the polyclinic "Aleida Fernández Chardiet" of the municipality of La Lisa in Havana City, utilizing a three-stage cluster sampling. The variables of interest were the perception of health and the behavior in front of health, which acquired the attribute of operative by means of 32 questions in an interview. A procedure of cluster analysis for the identification of the patterns was utilized. They were identified and they described quantitatively and qualitatively four well differentiated behavioral patterns, which exhibit a natural ordering from the most satisfactory to the worst. The consistent people could improve their behavior quickly if they had a lot of more information or information of better quality. The classification in patterns of behavior in front of health could be specially valuable in order to trace stategies of intervention. It is possible to reach the pattern of nominative reference; in all events they could achieve substantial improvement in the style of life of the people, in a shorter or longer term. The procedures of classification obtained can be executed by any member of a team of health. The developed methodology is completely general.