Health psychology Into Flashcards
Health psychology
Scientific study of psychological influences on physical health like
1) how we stay healthy
2) why we become ill
3) how we respond when we get ill
Changing causes of mortality between 1900 and 2010?
1900s: people dying from acute, infectious disorders (flu, tuberculosis, pneumonia)
200s: people dying from chronic, non-communicable diseases (NCDs)
What are non-communicable diseases ( NCDs) ?
On-going / long term diseases
Lifestyle diseases
Can be improve/ reduce risk by changing lifestyle
NCDs examples ?
Cardiovascular disease
Cancer
Chronic respiratory diseases
Theory
Set of analytic statements that explain a set of phenomena, such as why people practice poor health behaviors
Why study health psychology?
1) advances in technology and research
2) increased mortality due to chronic, lifestyle related illnesses
3) expanding health care field
4) to become informed consumers of research and health-related news, products
Experiment
A study in which two or more different conditions are created to which people are assigned randomly and their reactions are measured
Randomized clinical trials (RCT)
A type of experiment conducted to evaluate treatments or interventions and their effectiveness
A target treatments is compared against the existing standard of care or a placebo control, that is, an organically inert treatment
Prospective research design
Looks forward in time to see how:
- people change
- relationship between two variables changes over time
Conducted to understand the risk factors that relate to health conditions
Retrospective research design
Looks backward in time in an attempt to reconstruct the conditions that led to a current situation
Retrospective research design example ?
Identifying the risk factors that lead to the development of COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease)
Morbidity
Number of cases of a disease that exists at some given point in time
Proportion of illnesses in a population
Mortality
Numbers of deaths due to particular causes
Incidence of deaths in a population
Prevalence
Proportion of a population who have a specific characteristic
Incidence
The number of new cases per population in a given time period
