The reference groups all have their limitations because
they differ considerably from acromegaly, but we believe
that it is important to explore the illness perceptions of
patients with acromegaly in reference to other illnesses
because there are no data available on other hormonal
illnesses. In addition, the essence of illness perception research
is the perspective of the patient, independent of the
medical objective of symptoms. A recent study by Figueiras
and Alves (24) reported on perceptions of healthy people
of serious illness with a new version of the IPQ-R for
healthy people. With this questionnaire, the authors measured
perceptions of AIDS, tuberculosis, and skin cancer