BACKGROUND Health and disease are core concepts in health care and have attracted substantial interest and controversy. In recent and interesting contributions to the debate it has been argued that the challenges with the concept of disease can be resolved by a prototype concept of disease. As a robin is a more prototypical of a bird than a penguin, some diseases are more prototypical than others. If disease is a prototype concept, it would change nosology, but also health care and the study of health and disease. However, the statement that "disease is a prototype concept" forms an empirically testable hypothesis. Therefore, this study aims to test the hypothesis that health professionals have a prototype concept of disease. METHODS Two hundred twenty-three health care professionals in Norway were invited to participate in a survey where they were asked to rank a wide range of diseases according to how typical they considered them to be as diseases. Results were analysed with descriptive statistics. RESULTS The response rate was 90%. Lung cancer, leukemia, colon cancer, myocardial infarction, and AIDS are the diseases ranged to be most typical, while homosexuality, pregnancy, drapetomania, dissidence, and nostalgia are considered to be the least typical diseases. The results also show that the answers to how typical various diseases are vary greatly, even amongst a relatively homogenous group of health professionals. CONCLUSION This study falsifies the hypothesis that disease is a prototype concept for health professionals. This has implications for the debate on core concepts for health care. If health professionals do not have a prototype concept of disease, it is unlikely that there is a prototype concept of disease in general. Consequently, nosologies should not be based on prototypes.

中文翻译：

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卫生专业人员是否具有疾病的原型概念？答案是不。

背景技术健康和疾病是卫生保健中的核心概念，并且引起了广泛的关注和争议。在最近有趣的辩论中，有人争辩说，疾病的概念可以通过疾病的原型概念解决。由于知更鸟比企鹅更像鸟，所以某些疾病比其他疾病更典型。如果疾病是一个原型概念，它将改变疾病学，也将改变卫生保健以及对健康和疾病的研究。但是，“疾病是原型概念”的说法构成了经验可检验的假设。因此，本研究旨在检验卫生专业人员具有疾病原型概念的假设。方法挪威的233名医疗保健专业人员应邀参加了一项调查，在调查中，他们被要求根据他们认为疾病的典型程度对各种疾病进行排名。用描述性统计分析结果。结果回应率为90％。肺癌，白血病，结肠癌，心肌梗塞和艾滋病是最典型的疾病，而同性恋，怀孕，drapetomania，持异议和怀旧被认为是最不典型的疾病。结果还表明，即使在相对同质的卫生专业人员群体中，典型的各种疾病如何发生的答案也有很大差异。结论本研究伪造了疾病是卫生专业人员原型概念的假说。这对有关卫生保健核心概念的辩论有影响。如果卫生专业人员没有疾病的原型概念，那么一般来说就不可能有疾病的原型概念。因此，分类学不应基于原型。