Biopsychosocial Basics

Question 0

Four parts to health psychology:

Answer 0

1. Health promotion and maintenance
2. Prevention and treatment of illness
3. Etiology and correlates of health, illness, and dysfunction
4. Impact of health professionals on people’s behaviour

Question 1

Describe and define health psychology.

Answer 1

A field within psychology devoted to understanding psychological influences on how people stay healthy, why they become ill, and how they respond when they do get ill.

Question 2

Definition of health (World Health Organization):

Answer 2

Complete state of physical, mental, and social well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

Question 3

Definition of etiology:

Answer 3

Origins or causes of an illness.

Question 4

Three treatment-related behaviours:

Answer 4

1. Screening behaviours
2. Care-seeking behaviours
3. Maintenance and adherence behaviours

Question 5

Psychoanalytic contributions:

Answer 5

Freud and conversion hysteria:
- patient converts conflict into a symptom via the voluntary nervous system and then becomes relatively free of the anxiety caused by the conflict

Question 6

Psychosomatic medicine:

Answer 6

Dunbar and Alexander:

- specific illnesses are produced by internal conflicts, linked to patterns with types of personality

Question 7

Behavioural medicine:

Answer 7

Developed in part to address need for testable hypothesis for psychosomatic medicine. Demonstrates connection between body and mind previously suggested by psychosomatic medicine.

Question 8

The Biopsychosocial Model:

Answer 8

Health and illness are consequence of the interplay of biological, psychological, and social factors.

Question 9

The Biomedical Model:

Answer 9

All illness can be explained on basis of aberrant somatic processes and assumes that psychological and social processes are independent of disease process.
- reductionistic, single-factor model of illness, body-mind dualism

Question 10

Reductionist model (element of biomedical model):

Answer 10

Reduces illness to low-level processes.

Question 11

Single-factor model of illness (biomedical):

Answer 11

Explains illness in terms of biological malfunction rather than looking towards other factors that may contribute to development of the illness.

Question 12

Advantages of Biopsychosocial Model of Health:

Answer 12

• biological, psychological and social factors are all-important determinants of health and illness
• both macrolevel and microlevel processes interact
• health and illness caused by multiple factors and produce multiple effects

Question 13

Systems theory:

Answer 13

All levels of organization in any entity are linked to each other hierarchically and that change in any one level will effect change in all other levels.

Question 14

Clinical implications of biopsychosocial model:

Answer 14

• process of diagnosis should always consider the interacting role of biological, psychological and social factors
• recommendations for treatment must also examine three factors
• makes explicit the significance of the relationship between patient and practitioner

Question 15

Why is health psychology needed?

Answer 15

• increase in chronic or lifestyle illnesses
• changing perspective on definition of health
• increasing burden of health care expenditures

Question 16

Changing pattern of illness:

Answer 16

Until 20th century, acute disorders were major causes of illness and death; now chronic illnesses are main contributors to disability and death especially in industrialized countries.

Question 17

Definition of acute disorders:

Answer 17

short-term medical illness, usually amenable to cure

Question 18

Definition of chronic illnesses:

Answer 18

slowly developing diseases with which people live with for a long time; helped create presence of health psychology: psychological and social factors are implicated as causes; psychological issues arise in connection with chronic illnesses

Question 19

Role of epidemiology:

Answer 19

changing patterns of illness; morbidity and mortality

Question 20

Definition of epidemiology:

Answer 20

study of frequency, distribution, and causes of infectious and non-infectious disease in a population; based on investigation of physical environment

Question 21

Definition of morbidity:

Answer 21

refers to number of cases of a disease that exist at some given point; expressed as number of new cases (INCIDENCE) or as total number of existing cases (PREVALENCE)

Question 22

Definition of mortality:

Answer 22

refers to number of deaths due to a particular cause

Question 23

The Lalonde Report:

Answer 23

changing perspective on health and health care with framework for health resting on four cornerstones: human biology, environment, lifestyle, and health care organization

Question 24

Public health promotion model:

Answer 24

aimed at improving health of individuals and communities; highlighting need for social policy changes and action; shares many values of biopsychosocial model

Question 25

Health psychology’s demonstrated contributions:

Answer 25

• develop variety of short-term behavioural interventions to address variety of health-related problems
• guide interventions to change, promote and maintain people’s health

Question 26

Temporal self-regulation theory:

Answer 26

understanding individual health-related behaviours depends on how this health behaviour is framed over time

Question 27

Compensatory health beliefs:

Answer 27

understanding the role of compensatory beliefs for explaining why people fail to bring the intention-behaviour gap in context of tempting unhealthy alternative choices

Question 28

Definition of health behaviours:

Answer 28

modifiable risk factors that are central to understanding how health psychology can encourage useful goals

Question 29

Treatment-related behaviours:

Answer 29

Important set of behaviours that can help reduce risks for development of illness as well as help people maintain health and manage disease

Question 30

The different models of health:

Answer 30

• biopsychosocial model (optimum health and wellness)
• biomedical model (absence of disease)
• public health model

Question 31

Biomedical model of health:

Answer 31

dualistic (mind and body separate), mechanistic (body is a machine), and reductionistic (reduced to simplest components)

Question 32

Biopsychosocial model of health:

Answer 32

hierarchy of levels, interconnected, no dualism or reductionism; part of a social system

Question 33

What is health psychology?

Answer 33

understanding psychological influences on how people stay healthy, why they become ill, and how they respond when they do get ill (two-way psychological effects of illness)

Question 34

How did health psychology emerge?

Answer 34

changing patterns of illness, health care service issues… etc.