Instructions: For each question, click on the radio button beside your answer. When you have completed the entire quiz, click the Submit my answers button at the bottom of the page to receive your results.

Multiple Choice Questions

Question 1:

Which of the following best defines the concept of medical consumers?
a) People who work in partnership with health care providers and take charge of their own health-related decisions
b) People whose primary responsibility is to submit to their physician’s authority and follow his or her directions as closely as possible
c) People who acknowledge their individual lack of knowledge and hire a physician to provide medical knowledge
d) People who regularly consume pharmaceutical drugs

Question 2:

How have governments acted in response to the shift towards consumerism and free-market capitalism in health care?
a) They have not made significant policy changes.
b) They have introduced competitive mechanisms by increasing the range of services that individuals must pay to access.
c) They have decreased the number of services that individuals must pay to access.
d) They have added business training to medical schools.

Question 3:

How have coordinated patient groups and advocacy organizations facilitated the transition from patient to consumer in health care?
a) They have not played a significant role.
b) They have increased the number of alternative treatments available.
c) They have fought to ensure individuals’ freedom to choose their own treatments.
d) They have provided social support for those in need.

Question 4:

The internet has contributed to the ways in which individuals access information regarding their health. What phenomenon did it help to create?
a) Informed consumer
b) Expert client
c) Informed client
d) Empowered patient

Question 5:

What is the goal of educating consumers with information about health care and treatments?
a) To help them make informed decisions
b) To reduce power inequalities between patients and health care providers
c) To allow patients to self-diagnose their conditions
d) Both a and b

Question 6:

Which of the following is NOT and example of ways health care providers have attempted to improve the healthscape?
a) Bright paint colours
b) Asking staff to dress in scrubs only during procedures
c) Advertising to attract new patients
d) Valet parking

Question 7:

How have lifestyle medications contributed to the success of consumerism in health care?
a) They have played no role.
b) They offer individuals the option of defining and dealing with pain and distress on their own terms.
c) They decrease the need for physicians.
d) They have decreased the incidence of chronic disease.

Question 8:

Which of the following is NOT true about typical current medical tourists?
a) They are middle-class.
b) They depart from Western countries.
c) Their common destinations include South Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.
d) Their numbers are decreasing.

Question 9:

Which of the following factors have contributed to a rise in medical tourism?
a) Increase in health care costs in the Western world
b) The exotic appeal
c) An undersupply of health care practitioners
d) Both a and c

Question 10:

Which of the following is NOT considered a downside of medical tourism?
a) The websites where information is sought may not contain accurate medical information.
b) Providers are motivated by profit and may not properly explain the risks or side effects of treatment.
c) Practitioners in medical tourists’ home countries feel demoralized that patients aren’t choosing them but prefer to go abroad.
d) The host medical institution may not be bound by the same medical ethics.

True or False Questions

Question 11:

The shift from a patient to a consumer is partially due to a shift in power and a challenge to the notion that physicians know best.
a) True
b) False

Question 12:

Health care consumerism suggests that health care services should be purchasable.
a) True
b) False

Question 13:

It is not necessary that consumers be maximally informed about the benefits and risks of health care options.
a) True
b) False

Question 14:

People are now more likely to seek medical attention for an acute ailment than for a chronic condition.
a) True
b) False

Question 15:

One of the primary criticisms of the informed consumer movement is that information obtained over the internet may be skewed or driven by commercial interests.
a) True
b) False

Question 16:

Health care providers have responded to marketization with strategies that are similar to profit-driven businesses.
a) True
b) False

Question 17:

Several health care organizations have focused on brand recognition in order to attract patients and funds.
a) True
b) False

Question 18:

Allowing consumers maximal choice in health care aligns well with a publicly funded health care system.
a) True
b) False

Question 19:

The rise in consumerism in health care has shaped the definitions of health and chronic disease.
a) True
b) False

Question 20:

Direct-to-consumer advertising decreases the power imbalance between physicians and consumers.
a) True
b) False

Higher Education

Health and Society: Chapter 12

Multiple Choice Questions

True or False Questions