This article extends our understanding of the everyday practices of pharmaceuticalisation through an examination of moral concerns over medication practices in the household. Moral concerns of responsibility and discipline in relation to pharmaceutical consumption have been identified, such as...

Literature concerning patterns of psychotropic prescribing and its causes is discussed before focusing on the relationship between geographical location and psychotropic drug prescribing. The association between tranquilliser prescribing and urban-rural location is investigated using data from...

This study is concerned with how young people with moderate to severe asthma live with and explain the disorder and manage the resulting symptoms. Based on in-depth interviews with 55 young people aged 11-16 living in West London, it shows that asthma restricted their lives at school and...

This paper addresses the issue of the crisis of therapeutic efficacy in Britain through a case study of benzodiazepine tranquilliser dependence. The paper traces the rise of tranquillisers and the crisis of legitimacy in prescribing behaviour in the 1980s. It documents growing concern with...

Since the late 1990s, the term 'partnership' has increasingly been inserted into the literature and rhetoric of the UK health-care system. In this paper, the assumptions and implications surrounding the usage of the term in relation to doctor-patient interaction are examined in the context of...

This paper extends and problematises recent sociological research on the medicalisation of sleep, focussing on trends and transformations in the prospective ‘customisation’ of sleep in the 24/7 society. What exactly does customisation mean in this context; how does it relate to the...

In December 2008 the newly elected Prime Minister of New Zealand bypassed the agency that negotiates with manufacturers about the cost of medicines and agreed to fund Herceptin for women with early stage breast cancer for a twelve months course of treatment. This paper describes the unfolding of...

This paper develops an analysis of women's perceptions of medical technology and the elements which shape them, and then draws out the implications for medicine and the medicalization thesis. In the first part of the paper we outline the macro-theoretical debates about medicalization and the...

This article draws on fieldwork conducted with nurses in two sites of NHS Direct, the English tele-nursing service.Theoretically it has two objectives. Firstly to examine a group of professional workers in order to show how the discourse of work transformation associated with the call centre...