Lecture 1: Introduction to the Biospsychosocial Model

Question 1

What do health psychologists do

Answer 1

Find out what psychological factors cause illness or can help us against illness.

Question 2

Biomedical model

Answer 2

All disease and illness are explained by physiological processes, resulting from injury, biomedical imbalances, and bacteria or infection.

The mind and body are separate entities.

Question 3

Psychosomatic medicine

Answer 3

The idea that some disease are caused or influenced by mental processes.

Question 4

Hysterical paralysis

Answer 4

Loss of motor function precipitated by traumatic events
- Shows that repressed experiences and feelings are expressed in a physical problem
- Psychological factors may contribute to cause of illness

Question 5

Behavioural health

Answer 5

Concerned with maintenance of health and prevention of illness in healthy individuals
- patients no longer seen as passive

Question 6

What is health psychology

Answer 6

Practice and application of psychology to promote and maintain health, prevent and treat illness, identify etiological and diagnostic correlates of illness, and improve healthcare with analysis.

Question 7

Biopsychosocial model

Answer 7

onset and treatment of illness is determined by biological, psychological and social factors.
- all factors influence and interact with one another.

Question 8

What does the biopsychosocial model believe

Answer 8

• Multiple factors cause illness
• everyone is responsible to some extent for illness
• health preventions and health behaviour should treat illness
• mind and body interact

Question 9

McKeown’s thesis

Answer 9

Investigated medicine’s achievements on death rate
- Biomedical model: would believe medicine is better so less people dying
- Biopsychsoc: would believe changes in behaviour influenced this change.

Question 10

Individual behaviour and mortality

Answer 10

Contemporary illnesses caused by influences such as smoking etc. individual chooses own behaviour.
- most dominant illnesses are caused by individual behaviour

Question 11

Predictors of health status

Answer 11

1. regular exercise
2. moderate or no alcohol use
3. near or at prescribed weight
4. rarely snacking
5. not smoking
6. breakfast every day
7. sleeping 7-8 hours per day

Question 12

writing and immune response

Answer 12

• Group who wrote about trauma had more Hep-B antibodies than those who didn’t
• Suggest trauma influenced immune function

Question 13

Expressive writing and asthma

Answer 13

• Lung function improved with those who wrote about emotional trauma
• Psychological factors can influence biological factors