UNIT #1 HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY

Summarize the advantages of the biopsychosocial model.

1. Maintains that the macrolevel and microlevel processes continually interact to influence health and illness 2. Emphasizes both health and illness

Define health psychology.

Studies psychological influences on people on how they stay healthy, why they become ill, and how they respond when they get ill.

4. Improvement of health care system and the formulation of health policy.

Th ey study the impact of health institu- tions and health professionals on people's behavior to develop recommendations for improving health care.

By the middle ages, diseases were explained by supernatural explanations such as ?

Having a disease meaning god is punishing you for evil doing and cure often consisted of driving out evil forces by torturing the body. This form of therapy was later replaced by penace such as prayer and good deeds.

Correlational research?

Measures whether changes in one variable correspond with changes in another variable Disadvantage - Difficult to determine the direction of causality unambiguously Advantage over experiments - More adaptable

The case history of Nightmare deaths

Purpose - To see how completely the mind and body are intertwined in health Sudden nocturnal deaths among male refugees from Southeast Asia after the Vietnam War Occurred in the first few hours of sleep Autopsies revealed no specific cause of death Reasons Genetic susceptibility

Describe Freud's contribution to the field of psychosomatic medicine.

Freuds believed that the unconscious conflicts can produce physical disturbances that symbolize repressed psychological conflicts which gave rise to psychosomatic medicine although not used anymore.

The biomedical viewpoint began to change with the rise of modern psychology, particularly with?.

Sigmund Freud's (1856-1939) early work on conversion hysteria. According to Freud, specific unconscious conflicts can produce physical disturbances that symbolize repressed psychological conflicts. Although this viewpoint is no longer central to health psychology, it gave rise to the field of psychosomatic medicine

Biopsychosocial model?

Health and illness are consequences of the interplay of biological, psychological, and social factors

Describe the reasons for which health psychology developed.

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Describe trends in the expansion of health care services in the United States.

. Americans spend more than $2.3 trillion annually on health care (National Center for Health Statistics, 2011b) 2. substantial increases in health care costs have not brought improvement in basic indicators of health. 3. Huge disparities exist in the United States such that some individuals enjoy the very best health care available in the world while others receive little health care except in emergencies. 4. In 2010, 49.9 million Americans had no health insurance at all (U.S. Census Bureau, 2011), with basic preventive care and treatment for common illnesses out of financial reach. These devel- opments have fueled recent efforts to reform the health care system to provide all Americans with a basic health care package, similar to what already exists in most European countries.

1. Health? 2. Wellness?

1. Complete state of physical, mental, and social well- being and not merely the absence of the disease or infirmity. 2. The optimum state of health

Describe the research methodologies employed by health psychologists.

1. Correlational research 2. Prospective research 3. Longitudinal research 4. Retrospective designs

Explain epidemiology, morbidity, and mortality.

1. Epidemiology is the study of the frequency, distribu- tion, and causes of infectious and noninfectious disease in a population. For example, epidemiologists study not only who has what kind of cancer but also why some cancers are more prevalent than others in particular geo- graphic areas or among particular groups of people. 2. the number of cases of a disease that exist at some given point in time. Morbidity may be expressed as the number of new cases (incidence) or as the total number of existing cases (prevalence). Morbidity statistics, then, tell us how many people have what kinds of disorders at any given time. 3. Number of deaths due to a particular case

Methodological tools 1. Tools of neuroscience 2. Mobile and wireless technologies 3. Meta- analysis

1. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) - Permits glimpses into the brain Have helped improve the knowledge of the autonomic, neuroendocrine, and immune systems 2. Ecological momentary interventions (EMI) Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring devices 3. Combines results from different studies to identify how strong the evidence is for particular research findings

Describe the different occupations that employ health psychologists.

1. Health care practitioners 2. Social work 3. Occupational therapy 4. Dietetics 5. Physical therapy 6. Public health 7. Academic research 8. Private practice 9. Management of health care 10. Treatment settings 11. Occupational health settings

Explain the clinical implications of the biopsychosocial model.

1. Process of diagnosis can benefit from understanding the interacting role of biological, psychological, and social factors 2. Significance of the relationship between patient and practitioner is made clear 3. This improves: Patient's use of services Efficacy of treatment Rapidity with which illness is resolved

Why is the biomedical model ill-suited to understanding Illness?

1. Reduces illness to low-level processes such as disordered cells and chemical imbalances 2. Fails to recognize social and psychological processes as powerful influences over bodily estates assumes a mind-body dualism 3.Emphasizes illness over health rather than focusing on behaviors that promote health 4. Model cannot address many puzzles that face practitioners: why, for example, if six people are exposed to the flu virus , do only three develop the flu?

3. Etiology and correlates of health, illness, and dysfunction

Health psychologist address the behavioral and social factors that contribute to health, illness, and dysfunction, such as alcohol consumption, smoking, exercise, the wearing of seat belts, and ways of coping with stress.

Summarize the benefits of increased medical acceptance.

Health psychologists have developed a variety of short term behavioral interventions to address health related problems including, managing pain, modifying bad health habits such as smoking, managing the side effects of treatments. They benefit the individuals for years and only take a few hours.

Describe the role of a health psychologist.

A health psychologist focus on 1. health promotion/maintenance 2. Prevention and treatment of illness 3. Etiology and correlates of health, illness, and dysfunction 4. Improvement of health care system and the formulation of health policy.

2. Prevention and treatment of illness

A health psychologist might teach people in a high-stress occupa- tion how to manage stress effectively so that it will not adversely affect their health. A health psychologist might work with people who are already ill to help them follow their treatment regimen.

Longitudinal research?

A research design in which the same people are observed at multiple points in time.

Explain the role of theory in health psychology.

A theory is a set of analytic statements that explain a set of phenomena. such as why people practice poor health behaviors. ADVANTAGES OF A THEORY: 1. Provides guidelines for how to do research and interventions 2. Generates specific predictions that can be tested and modified 3. Helps tie together loose ends

Explain the case history of nightmare deaths.

After looking into the deaths of these individuals it was noted that many of them could have died due to the stress/anxiety/pressure of working and going to night school to learn english. As well as needing to provide for their families, moving to the united states, cultural difference, language barrier, and difficulties finding satisficatory jobs. Other immediate triggers was family argument, watching violent TV shows before bed, and religious beliefs in dreams, and frightening dreams.

An important factor influencing the rise of health psychology is the change in?

Illness pattern in the united states. - In the 20th century the major causes of death were acute disorders such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, and other infectious disease. - Now chronic illness such as heart disease, cancer, and respiratory diseases—are the main contributors to disability and death, particularly in in- dustrialized countries.

The ancient Greeks were among the earliest civilizations to identify the role of bodily factors in health and illness. They developed a humoral theory of illness which means?

There viewpoint was that the disease resulted when the four humors or circu- lating fluids of the body—blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm—were out of balance. The goal of treatment was to restore balance among the humors.

Retrospective designs?

Look backward in time in an attempt to reconstruct the conditions that led to a current situation. A method for example were critical in identifying the risk factors that led to the development of aids.

Evidence based medicine?

Medical interventions go through rigorous testing and evaluation of their benefits before they become the standard of care

Research in health psychology is experimental. In an experiment, a researcher creates?

Two or more differing conditions are created to which people are assigned randomly, and their reactions are measured

Psychosomatic medicine

Specific illnesses are produced by people's internal conflicts was perpetuated in the work of Dunbar in the 1930's and Alexander in the 1940's. - Unlike freud, these researchers linked patterns of personality to specific illnesses rather than specific conflict to a specific illness. Criticism - Conflict or personality type is not sufficient to produce illness. Rather, the onset of disease is usually due to several factors working together, which may include a biological pathogen (such as a viral or bacterial infec- tion) coupled with social and psychological factors, such as high stress, low social support, and low socioeco-

Describe the advances in technology and research.

New medical technologies and scientific advances create issues that can be addressed by health psychologists. Genes have been uncovered that contribute to many diseases including breast cancer. How do we help a college student whose mother has just been diagnosed with breast cancer come to terms with her risk? If she tests positive for a breast cancer gene, how will this change her life? Health psychologists help answer such questions.

Etiology?

Origins or causes of an illness

Renaissance continuing to present day great strides were made such as?

Understanding the technical bases of medicine. - Practice was dependent on laboratory findings and looked to bodily factors rather than to the mind bases for health and illness. - In an effort to break with the superstitions of the past, practitioners resisted acknowledging any role for the mind in disease processes. Instead, they focused primarily on organic and cellular pathology as a basis for their diagnoses and tx recommendations.

The greeks also believed the mind was important. They described personality types associated with each of the four humors, with?

blood being associated with a passionate temperament, black bile with sadness, yellow bile with an angry disposition, and phlegm with a laid-back approach to life.

Randomized clinical trials?

conducted to evaluate effectiveness of treatments or interventions over time

The biomedical model?

has gov- erned the thinking of most health practitioners for the past 300 years, maintains that all illness can be explained on the basis of aberrant somatic bodily processes, such as biochemical imbalances or neurophysiological abnor- malities. The biomedical model assumes that psycho- logical and social processes are largely irrelevant to the disease process.

Prospective research looks forward in time to see ?

how a group of people change, or how a relationship between two variables change over time. Conducted to understand the risk factors that relate to health conditions.

1. Health promotion/maintenance focuses on ?

issues such as how to get children to develop good health habits, how to promote regular exercise, and how to design a media campaign to get people to improve their diets.

The prevalence of acute infectious disorder such as tuberculosis, influenza, measles, and poliomyelitis has declined due to ?

treatment innovations and changes in public health standards, such as improvements in waste control and sewage. Acute disorders are short-term illnesses, of- ten the result of a viral or bacterial invader and usually amenable to cure.