Impacts of Life Events on Patient Well-Being Flashcards
Define what a life event is
Major happenings that can occur in a persons life that require some degree of psychological readjustment
Why are major life events significant?
They can impose on health status as they can be challenging, create stress and have consequences (as stress is linked to illness)
What are the main sources of life event stressors
Individual (illness, conflictm personal relationships or lack of control), Family (Divorce, illness, disability, death) or society (Jobs or environment - think deadlines, workload etc)
Describe the types of internal conflict and the effects of internal conflict
1) Approach - Approach (deciding between two good things)
2) Approach-avoidance (wanting nice food but needing to lose weight)
3) Avoidance- avoidance (two bad things, eg, deciding between cancer treatments). Internal conflict can increaseanxiety, depression, headaches and nausea.
Stress can impact what systems?
Physiological system (SNS, endocrine, HR, breathing, muscles). Psychological aspect (cognitive functioning and emotional). Social aspect (social behaviour)
How are life event stressors measured?
1) Self report - interviews, questionnaires, rating scales.
2) Physiological - Galvanic skin response, changes in BP, HR and biochemical markers
What is the best scoring system for stress? and how does it work?
The Social Re-adjustment Rating Scale (SRRS). It is a list of life events rated on scale on 0-100, patients must indicate which events have happened to them in the past 12months
What are the strengths of the Social Re-adjusting Rating Scale?
It has a wide range of events people find stressful, values assigned were based on a broad sample of adults, easy and quick, retrospective approach.
What are some of the limitations to the Social Re-adjusting Rating Scale
Items are vague (illness could be a cold or cancer), it fails to consider the impact of an event for an individual (retirement good and bad), fails to distinguish between desirable and undesirable (change in financial state), accuracy of memory for life events and causality.
What are some of the limitations to physiological measures?
Measure itself may induce stress, it could be influenced by other than stress variable, it could be expensive, labour intensive and time consuming.
What is the case of Kruk, J. 2012
It concludes that major life events play an important tole in the etiology of breast cancer
What is the case of Protheore et al, 1999
It concludes that severe life events or difficulties are NOT associated with the onset of breast cancer.
What is the case of Sandberg et al, 2000
It concludes that severe negative life events increase the risk of a child’s asthma attacks in 2-6 weeks after the event.
What are daily hassles and the importance of them
These are minor stressors that occur regularly. They are important as the accumulation of many minor stressors is linked to health issues.
What is the assessment scale for daily hassles
The Hassles Scale
