19 Introduction to Health Psychology Flashcards
What is WHO (1948) definition of health?
“state of complete physical, mental and social well-being.. Not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”
What does Bircher (2005) define health as?
Dynamic state of well-being characterised by a physical and mental potential satisfying the demands of life according to their age, culture and personal responsibility. No single definition, complex concept extending beyond biological aspects of individual functioning
What do Indigenous Australian people define health as?
“not just the physical well-being of the individual but refers to the social, emotional, spiritual and cultural well-being of the whole community. This is a whole of life view and includes the cyclical concept of the life-death-life”
What are the models of health and illness?
Biomedical model of illness Biopsychosocial model of illness
Describe the Biomedical Model of Illness
Symptoms of illness considered to have underlying pathology, therefore removal of pathology -> restored health Criticism: Too simple, reductionist- ignore the fact that individuals might respond differently to different illnesses because of personality, social support, development, cultural beliefs etc.
Describe the biopsychosocial model of illness
- Psychological and social factors can add to biological or biomedical explanations and understanding of health and illness -> diseases and symptoms can be explained by physical, social, cultural or psychological factors - Employed in health psychology
Which model is the more current view of health
Bio-psychosocial model of illness
What is health psychology?
Health psychology is an interdisciplinary field concerned with the application of psychological knowledge and techniques to health, illness, and health care.
List what health psychology is devoted to
Devoted to understanding psychological influences on how people - Stay healthy - Why they become ill - How they respond if they do become ill
Explain the usefulness of models of health behaviour
- Theoretical models seek to explain and predict why people engage in health-enhancing or risk behaviours - Models have identified modifiable influences upon health behaviour that offer potential targets for health intervention (promotion and education).
Why are we looking at models of health behaviour
Health enhancing - Healthy eating - Exercise - Safe Sex - Screening - Vaccination Health Risks - Sedentary lfiestyle - Smoking - Alcohol - Risky sexual behaviour - Nutrient poor diet
What do we want to focus on in terms of the models?
We want to focus on enhancing health and reducing health risk
List the different models of health behaviour
- Transtheoretical model - Health belief model - Theory of planned behaviour - Health action process approach - Temporal self-regulation theory
Describe the transtheoretical model
Provides a framework for explaining how behaviour change occurs -> can design an intervention approach based on what stage someone is at (flexibility)
This model has 5/7 stages of change
(1) Precontemplation (2) Contemplation (3) Preparation (4) Action (5) Maintenance
(6) Termination (7) Relapse
This model is not linear - can enter and exit at any point and people may repeat a stage several times
What do the first 5 stages of the Transtheoretical model entail?
- Precontemplation
- No intention of taking action within next 6 months
- Individuals more likely to be in denial -> report lower self-efficacy and more barriers to change
- Contemplation
- Intends to take action in the next 6 months
- May seek information although may still underestimate the potential for relapse
- Preparation
- Intends to take action within the next 30 days, has taken some steps in this direction
- People start to set their goals and some will make concrete plans. Motivation and self-efficacy are crucial if action is to be elicited
- Action
- Has changed overt behaviour for less than 6 months
- Realistic goal setting crucial if action to be maintained. Use of social support is important to receive reinforcement of change
- Maintenance
- Has changed overt behaviour for more than 6 months
- Can be enhanced by self-monitoring and reinforcement
What do the added 2 stages of the Transtheoretical model entail?
- Termination
- Overt behaviour will never return, and there is complete confidence without fear of relapse
- e.g. they quit smoking 20 years ago
- Relapse
* Where a person lapses into their former behavioural pattern and returns to a previous stage (common, can occur at any stage)
What are the strengths of the Transtheoretical Model?
- Focused consideration on what is the best type of intervention to conduct at each stage
- Implications for interventions à little focus on how to achieve change if in pre-contemplation
Describe the weaknesses/limitations of this model
- Someone can be at more than one stage at a time
- Might have too much focus on motivation and intention à past behaviour is a more powerful predictor of future behaviour
- Participants that change stage might not be predictive of the success of intervention
- Doesn’t consider social aspects of health behaviour, severity of illness/disease/outcome, characteristics of
the individual
Describe the nature of the Health-Belief Model
The HBM is a social cognitive model that attempts to explain and predict health behaviours
- This is done by focusing on the attitudes and beliefs of individuals
A person’s readiness or likelihood of behaviour change is determined by their beliefs, which are in turn determined by their demographics and situation -> there are four main factors:
- Perceived severity or seriousness of the disease
- Perceived susceptibility of the disease
- Perceived benefits of health action
- perceived barriers to performing the action
Elaborate on the four main factors in the Health-belief model
- Severity or seriousness: thinking you will get a certain disease
- Susceptibility: thinking a disease is serious because of a specific reason
- Benefits: thinking certain behaviours would reduce/increase the chances of getting the disease
- Barriers: thinking it will be hard to perform certain health behaviours
What are the strengths and criticisms of Health-belief model?
Strengths
- it has been adapted to explore a variety of long- and short-term health behaviours
Criticisms
- Limited model -> does not allow for a dynamic process of change in beliefs
- Assumes that individuals are rational information processers and decision-makers, does not take environment, social influences or uncommon stimuli into consideration
- Does not account for habitual behaviours e.g. eating behaviours
What is the nature of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and its aim?
Aims to incorporate wider social influences and the necessity of intention formation
Behaviour determined by intention, which can be influenced by an attitude towards the behaviour (outcome expectancy, outcome value) and their perception of social pressure regarding the behaviour (subjective norm)
Describe what is meant by the attitude in Theory of planned behaviour (TPB)
- Outcome expectancies: expected consequences of behaviour e.g. quit smoking
- Outcome evaluation: evaluation of the favourableness of expected consequences of a behaviour e.g. if I could not have yellow teeth that would be great
What is the subjective norm in the theory of planned behaviour (TPB)?
- Normative beliefs: your perception of how other people regard your performance on a behaviour e.g. I will look lame if I put on sun cream
- Motivation to comply: desire to comply with wishes of others e.g. I want to be cool so I wont put cream on
