Depositor

This project was entitled 'GP consultations and concepts of illness: Asian women in Bristol', and the questionnaires covered place of origin, diet, exercise and social conditions as well as relations with general practitioner, hospital treatment and factors affecting mental health such as attitudes towards life in Britain. It was originally planned to interview 100 Punjabi-speaking women who had arrived in Bristol as brides from India or Pakistan in the 1960s, asking standard questions to examine concepts of illness in general within the group, testing the received idea that ethnic minority communities look after their own and do not need help from statutory services. The terms in which the women described health and illness were examined, and an attempt was made to determine what part terminology played in their contact with general practitioners. Interviewees were mainly women in their 20s and 30s, interview by Kamaljit Poonia in doctors' waiting rooms and ante-natal clinics. The interviewees' co-operation encouraged the researchers to undertake more searching interviews than originally planned, which made it impossible to undertake a large number, and eventually only 34 women were asked to fill out the standard questionnaire. In-depth interviews involving home visits were undertaken with 12 of these women and with 2 who had not filled out the questionnaire, 6 resulting in tape recordings of over 10 hours per person. These led to a further study concentrating on experiences of depression.