Health Psychology Flashcards
What is it? Biopsychosocial model of health and illness. Symptom perception, interpretation and response
What does health psychology aim to understand the influence on?
How people stay healthy
Why they become ill
How they respond when they get ill
Why we need HP: From acute disorders to chronic illnesses?
- We’ve had a change in the pattern of illness in the 20th century. From acute illness to chronic.
Why? : We’ve found strategies to prevent them.
And arising psychological and social factors are a cause of developing chronic diseases.
HP look at:
- the list of health-compromising behaviours that influence many chronic diseases
- the adjustment to chronic illnesses, which have many impacts on ones life
What focuses do HP have on advancements in technology and research with individuals and their behaviour?
This has developed new issues in health care: eg. genetic testing
If someone finds our that they’re at high risk of something, how will it impact them? their behaviour? how does this effect?
What is another HP focus in reducing chronic diseases in relation to costs?
Health care costs have increased dramatically
- HP focus on encouraging people yo eat healthier, exercise etc to prevent chronic diseases and reduce costs
What is the biopsychosocial model?
This model offers a more holistic approach, despite it excluding spirituality. Importantly- it turns away from the Biomedical model which isn’t holistic.
- There is an interconnection between biology, psychology, and social context, where the core all affects our health.
- A similar model is Te Whare Tapa Wha
Why are HP interested in symptom perception, interpretation and response?
Many of us will still fall sick despite our best efforts to be healthy.
- between 70-90% of the population has a medical condition which include very common symptoms.
- 2/3 people don’t see a doctor.
HP look at when and how do people decide when they’re sick.
What are 2 possible errors for dealing with symptoms?
- You decide a symptom isn’t important when it actually is.
- You decide a symptom is important when it isnt.
Both choices have consequences:
1. you allow your symptoms to progress and get worse
2. you waste time money and resources
In short, what are the three stages of dealing with symptoms?
- Becoming aware of sensations
- Interpreting sensations
- Planning and taking action
What is the break down of Becoming aware of sensations?
Many different stimuli compete for our time at every given point, what determines whether we notice the symptom or not?
- Nature of symptom/sensation:
- is it strong, persistent, painful, disruptive?
- We often notice symptoms like these, but even if they’re strong or persistent, there’s still a chance we may not notice due to where the focus of our attention is - Focus of attention & situational factors :
- External vs Internal - the more we’re engaged externally, the less we’re engaged internally
- The competition for our attention
eg: people who are bored and socially isolated or live alone tend to notice symptoms more - Individual Differences:
- Some people may pay more attention to their internal states than others
eg: people who are neurotic tend to recognise and report symptoms quickly - Mood and emotions:
- People in positive moods rate themselves as more healthy etc. Report fewer symptoms.
- People in negative moods report the opposite. - Stress:
- It can aggravate your perception of symptoms because it can cause them itself: eg. increase in heartrate, heavy breathing
- It can get in the way of focussing on symptoms
Explain the power of expectations when it comes to symptom perception?
There was a study where expectations of a certain sound made people feel either good or bad depending on what they were told about the sounds.
What is the Placebo effect?
- when someone takes an inactive pill/substance, they can still experience effects - depending on what that will was meant to do.
- negative outcomes is referred to as nocebo.
- It’s used in research to help dictate the differences between the actual treatment and the expectation of the treatment.
- Also, people with negative expectations may make a treatment less effective
Explain the break down of Interpreting Sensations.
Once a sensation has been noticed, we must interpret it’s meaning.
How and when does a sensation become a symptom, and when must we act?
- Identity: An abstract label or verbal tage is placed on a set of symptoms. Our own past experiences, knowledge and beliefs/ideas, influence how we identify symptoms and create an idea of what it may be which may make it something urgent or not.
- Our illness representations and common sense models may be inaccurate - Timeline: We formulate the beliefs about the course of the illness, eg. acute or chronic. This guides our behaviour and if the timeline doesn’t end up fitting our initial expectations, we change our mind.
- Consequences: we incorporate our beliefs about the effects of an illness. How serious is it, the outcomes, which further impacts our behaviour.
- Causes: beliefs about what might have caused the illness. eg: our own behaviour, genetics, pollution, infection
- Beliefs about our control or cure: Personal control= what one believes they can do.
Treatment Control= What one believes treatment will do.
- These are important because they are related to seeking and getting medical treatment or not.
Explain the break down of Planning and Taking Action:
Once people recognise a set of symptoms, label them and realise that they could indicate a medical problem, they have several options:
-Ignoring the symptoms in hopes they recede
- Seeking advice from others
- Presenting themselves to a health professional
