desscribe the process of being officially defined as ill and
critically examine the way knowledge about illness is influenced by
this process.

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 24 Apr 2004 16:33 PDT

"Officially defined as ill" implies that some unspecified authority is
passing judgment regarding whether or not a person is ill. What sort
of authority did you have in mind? Most hospitals have a triage team
that determines the level of urgency required. Most insurance
companies have official guidelines which determine whether or not
payment will be made for certain kinds of illnesses, procedures, and
medications. The Social Security Administration has procedures for
denying or accepting applications for disability compensation.

Can you give us some idea of the context of your question?

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Clarification of Question by ramen-ga on 26 Apr 2004 01:22 PDT

hi 
"officially" may mean from the perspective of the majority of society,
or from whatever authority society deems fit to define illness - i.e.
Society may vest this in the medical profession to do.
an 1500 words essay is to based on this question 
so other authorities procedures such as stated in ur explanation will
be also usefull.
thank u

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Clarification of Question by ramen-ga on 13 May 2004 15:02 PDT

further clarification

i need explanations of illness in
biomedical,social,cultural,biopsychosocial models.

the process of defining illness. (through g.ps and lay people's perspective)
how does the gp go about identifying  a patient is ill and also how
does a ordinary person go about identifying themselves as being ill.

and how does factors like culture,ethnicity,socioeconomic status
,social groups ,income ,personal experience of illness affect the way
people identify themselves as ill and go and see a doctor.
e.g people who has the common cold may not see a g.p every time they
had a cold. some might use home medicine to get themselves well. and
some might see common cold as not being illness, they might think its
just normal to get cold in the winter.

i hope this will help.  
thanx