What Are Health Behaviours, Why Are They Important & What Influences Them? Flashcards
What do people need to do in regards to illness? (7)
- have prevented in the first place
- correctly recognise important symptoms
- seek help at the right time
- inform exactly what they know
- ask the right questions
- exactly follow advice at the right time
- come back for check up at the right time
What is an illness behaviour?
Activities undertaken by people who experience symptoms but have not yet received a diagnosis
What is a sick role behaviour?
Behaviour of people after diagnosis - whether by self or professional diagnosis
What influences sick role behaviours? (10)
Age - older more likely to seek health
Cost - wealthier more likely to seek help
Geographical location
Label of disease
People’s ideas regarding - cause, onset, consequences, & controllability
Coping - people don’t seek help if they feel their quality of life is ok
Stress - seek help if stressed & have strong emotional reactions
Gender - women more likely to seek help than men
Intermittent symptoms - less likely to seek help
Culture - impacts on what treatment is acceptable
What is the sick role?
The social expectation of the people around the person who is ill - how do they expect them to act & what treatment do they expect them to seek & receive?
What are the rules and obligations regarding the sick role?
Rights:
- excused from normal roles and responsibilities
- regarded as not personally responsible to being sick
Obligations:
- to want to get better
- to cooperate with technically competent help
When do the rules and obligations regarding the sick role change?
If the individual can be seen to be at all responsible for their injury or illness
What are risk reduction behaviours?
The avoidance of unhealthy behaviours specifically to protect the health of the individual
What does the biomedical model of health focus on?
- It focuses on what is wrong with the body’s biological functioning
- It assumes each disease has a specific cause that physically affects the body in a uniform & predictable way
- diagnosis
- treatment
What does the biomedical model of health leave out?
- Non-biological factors that play a role
- the circumstances in which people live and work
- how individuals think & feel
What does the biopsychosocial model of health do?
Recognises that habits are not completely voluntary and are influenced by the interaction of:
- biological factors
- psychological factors
- social factors
- physical environment
What are the biological influences of bowel cancer? (7)
- risk increases with age
- family history increases risk
- obesity in men and premenopausal women
- men - higher risk than women (apart from smoking women)
- presence of polyps
- chronic inflammatory bowel disease
- high insulin & type 2 diabetes
What are the psychological influences of bowel cancer?
- personal attitudes to the likely risk of bowel cancer & whether you can do something about it
- motivation to be healthy & look after self by screening & reporting symptoms
- confidence to report symptoms or ignore them & hope they will go away
- comfort in testing own faeces, talking about bowels & having rectum and colon checked
What are the family & individual social/cultural influences of bowel cancer? (8)
- better informed about cancer & early detection
- knowledge of family history
- alcohol & smoking increases risk
- high levels physical activity decreases risk
- foods higher in vitamin B6, veg, fruit & fish decrease risk
- foods such as meat & fat and low fibre increases risk
- knowledge of nutrition decreases risk
- healthy fresh food more expensive than high calorie processed
What are the community & population social/cultural influences on bowel cancer? (6)
- political decision to have screening program in Australia
- loss of trust due to problems with screening
- media influence in reporting success of screening program
- cultural taboos talking about bowel and faeces
- rural people higher levels of death
- access to treatment if diagnosed
