Week 5 Flashcards
Persisent Somatic Symptoms (PSS)
30-50% of the symptoms are unexplained and often disappear spontaneously, but sometimes persist. This causes a high burden of disease and symptom perception and interpretation are important.
What makes you notice a symptom?
- Painful or disruptive
- Novel or rare
- Persistent
- Pre-existing chronic disease
Symptom perception model
Whether you notice a symptom or not is influences by:
- Negative affectivity (current emotions and personal traits)
- Selective attention (knowledge and distraction)
- External information (social context and vulnerability)
Other factors:
- Gender / sex (more women)
- Coping style (repression)
- Cognitions (expectations)
Placebo
Favourable treatment effects that cannot be ascribed to mechanisms of the treatment itself.
Nocebo
Unfavourable treatment effects that cannot be ascribed to mechanisms of the treatment itself.
Open vs. hidden treatment
Telling people about the effects of the drugs during the procedure causes more effect than just giving hem the drugs.
Formation of treatment expectations is influenced by
- Instructions
- Conditioning
- Past experiences
- Observation of other people
Underpredicting pain may help & harm
- Help: reduces pain perception.
- Harm: reduces trust and creates disappointment.
Placebo and nocebo effects on hyperalgesia (increased pain-sensitivity)
- In placebo conditions verbal suggestion and conditioning together were the most effective.
- In nocebo conditions the verbal suggestions are just as effective as conditioning.
Influences on symptoms interpretation
- Culture
- Individual differences
- Self / social identity
- Illness experiences
- Causal attributions
Disease prototypes / cognitive schema’s
A mental representation of an illness, what it looks like and the duration of it.
Ex: you will experience a cold differently when you see it as a flu then when you see it as throat cancer.
Common-sense model of illness
There is a dual processing of symptoms:
- The cognitive response: how you interpret a certain sensation.
- The emotional response: how you feel about that sensation.
These 2 both influence our coping response and our appraisal.
5 themes of illness representations
- Identity
- Consequences
- Cause
- Timeline
- Curability / controllability
5 different kinds of delay in seeking health advice
- Appraisal delay: realising that you are ill.
- Illness delay: considering if you need help.
- Utilisation / behavioural delay: really acting upon it.
- Scheduling delay: when can you go?
- Treatment delay: when can you start the treatment?
Steps of a medical consultation
- Establish a relationship
- Reason for visit
- Examination
- Establish the condition
- Treatment or further investigation