introduction Flashcards
What is health
Common definitions focus on lack of:
Objective signs of illness
Subjective symptoms of illness
or an illness/wellness continuum
What is health psychology?
the study of how psychological influences contribute to health, illness, and reaction to illness.
It is also the scientific, educational and professional contributions of psychological theory, practice and research to health related issues.
What do health psychologist do?
- Health promotion and maintenance
- Prevention and treatment of illness and disease
- Research Etiology (origins/causes of illness)
- Analyze and improve the health care system and policy
Why is the field of health psychology needed?
20th century – declines in infectious disease result of preventive measure
Today – Chronic diseases – develop and persist over a long period of time.
Chronic illnesses account for more than half of all deaths
Why are chronic diseases so prevalent today?
industrialization increased stress and exposure to harmful chemicals.
More people today survive to old age, chronic diseases are more likely to afflict older than younger individuals.
What are some changes happening in healthcare?
- Health care cost rising Increased
- Medical Acceptance of the importance of psychological and social factors
- Demonstrated contributions of behavioral Interventions to to health
What is the main reason that healthcare costs are rising?
increase in chronic illness
What is the Biopsychosocial Model?
The prominent model in Health Psychology practice and research
What is the Biomedical Model?
All illness can be explained in terms of abnormal bodily processes (e.g., chemical imbalance, neurophysiological abnormalities)
Compare the Biomedical to the Biopsychosocial model
reductionist vs macro/micro level
single cause vs multiple causes
mind/body dualism vs mind/body inseparable
illness over health vs health over illness
What are the 12 determinants of health?
- Personal Health Practices/Coping Skills
- Healthy Child Development
- Biology and Genetic
- Health Services
- Gender
- Culture
- Income and social status
- Social Support Networks
- Education
- Employment/Work Conditions
- Social Environments
- Physical Environments
What is experimental design?
establishing cause and effect relationships using randomized clinical trials
what are some components of experimental designs?
- Random sampling/random assignment
- Experimental group and Control group
- Placebo
- Single blind and Double blind research
What is a correlational design?
looks at the relationship between variables
what are some components of correlational design?
- Examining existing relationships and variables that cannot be manipulated
- Developing hypotheses
- Generating predictive information.
Prospective designs
designs such as longitudinal research which we observe people over time
Retrospective Research
looking back in time, reconstruct conditions
use archival data
Qualitative Research
interviews with individuals of interests; focus groups; case studies etc.
Cohort effect
generational effect due to historical experiences of a group of subjects.
Single-subject design/single participant study
Initial assessment and again after some intervention is made.
Disadvantages – low generalizability
Advantages – Stimulates development of new treatments
Twin studies
used to determine whether heredity factor influences health:
Monozygotic twins
Dizygotic twins
Adoption studies
compare traits of adopted children with those of both natural and adoptive parents.
Mortality
the number of deaths due to a particular cause
Morbidity
the number of cases of a disease that exists at a certain point in time. (incidences and prevalence)
Prevalence
the number of existing cases of a disease (new or old)
Incidence
the number of new cases of a disease (new diagnosis)
Epidemic
An epidemic occurs when an infectious disease spreads rapidly to many people.
Pandemic
A pandemic is a global disease outbreak.
