Outline
Health psychology deals with the enhancement of the whole personality identifying and eliminating the biopsychosocial causes that lead to disease. This paper presents various perspectives of health psychology, emphasizing on the stresses that which cause for the psychological and physiological illnesses. Methods for the stress management and the consequences of stress are also summed up in this paper.
The client’s beliefs and behavior also determine the health promotion and prevention. Substance abuse results in the development of the disease and there are biosocial reasons to develop substance abuse. The role of health psychology in hospitals, the physiological and psychological perception on pain and its management, coping with life threatening illness and health psychology and health care delivery are also presented in this paper.
Health psychology and stress
There are a number of behavioral, biological and social factors that influence the illness and health of a person. Health psychology deals with the promotion, prevention and treatment of the illness and diseases. Health psychologists observe the patients to assess their reaction, coping and recovery from the illness. Health psychology could be defined as ”the aggregate of the specific educational, scientific, and professional contributions of the discipline of psychology to the promotion and maintenance of health, the prevention and treatment of illness, the identification of etiologic and diagnostic correlates of health, illness, and related dysfunction, and the analysis and improvement of the health care system.” (Glossary, 2009, Health psychology, para.1).
The biopsychosocial model of health can provide an integrated health to a person. Hereditary factors (transmission of genes from parents to the child), psychological factors like emotion, thoughts and attitude of the individual and social factors, stress and trauma that one experiences in life influence on the molding of one’s behavior. Therefore, the biopsychosocial model focuses on the prevention, treatment and recovery from all disturbing biopsychosocial factors of a person.
Stressful experiences such as confronting a trauma, cultural issues like racism and bitter personal experiences may trigger to illness. Psychobiological changes in hormones and nervous system can be observed in an individual who has been exposed to a traumatic event in life that makes one’s health bad. Even though the production of hormones is useful in the initial stages to overcome the traumatic and stressful experience, eventually it will lead to chemical imbalance in the brain and thereby the development of disease. Therefore, the stressors lead a person to depression, anorexia, insomnia, anxiety, phobias, obsessive compulsive disorder, isolation and difficulties in cognition.
Stress and Its Effects on Health
Severe stress may lead to personality disorder interrupting one’s perception and cognitive function. It develops maladaptive behavior and the abnormal feelings in the person. Stress is not at all destructive in the initial stage but when its intensity becomes more, there will be hormonal, chemical and neurobiological changes such as the production of epinephrine, glucorticoids in our body as a reaction to it.
The production of these excessive amounts of chemicals will result in the malfunction of the brain, physical ailments, increase in the heartbeat rate and the destruction of the immune system. It causes the enlargement of amygdale which affects one’s emotional changes and shrinking of hippocampus that affects the cognitive activities such as memory and learning. In the extreme cases, this may lead to dissociation where the person loses the ability to distinguish the difference between concepts and to verbalize the incidents he met with.
Stress Management Methods
There are many ways to manage and reduce stress other than medication. Some of them are given below. Incorporating an effective lifestyle in the daily activities will certainly reduce stress. Intake of nutritious food: intake of improper food and use of various intoxicants will result in stress. So, the first step to reduce stress is to take nutritious food and refrain from intoxicants. Exercise and sports: exercise makes our body to get refreshed and it helps us to excrete excess stress. Deep breathing is one of the finest exercises to relax the body. Mediation: meditation helps our mind concentrate on one thing and it strengthens our mind to face stress by way of accepting the reality as it is. Lack of sleep increases our stress; so getting more sleep will decrease the intensity of stress.
Health and Behavior
“Recent research suggests that a just world view may promote good health while low belief in a just world may deleteriously affect well-being.” (Lucas, Alexander, Firestone, & Lebreton, 2008, Abstract, para.1). From this study it could be inferred that one’s belief influences on the health promotion and prevention. So, inculcating positive thoughts on culture, religion, behavior, society, and disease will help the person to prevent illness. Health is not only the absence of disease but enhancement of mental, physical and environmental wellness.
Health promotion program for stress management
Identification of stress, strategies to provide theoretical awareness on stress, teaching stress management methods, building a supportive environment to reduce stress, assessment of health, nutrition programs, preventive intervention and evaluation of the program are the main steps in health promotion program for stress management. The basic perspective on health promotion is to make the people able to prevent and promote health in every aspect.
Substance use and abuse
There are biological, social and psychological factors that lead to the development of substance use and abuse. Family history and inheritance play a vital role in developing substance abuse since individual is made up of genes transmitting through parents. “Substance abuse disorders are related to a host of biopsychosocial problems including severe medical and obstetric complications, poverty and unemployment, relational and parenting problems, domestic violence, and child abuse.” (Uziell-Miller, & Dresner, 2002, Abstract, para.1).
Social consequences of substance abuse are failure in performing daily work, fulfilling responsibilities in the family and obligations in the school, indulging in legal problems like driving vehicle improperly after the consumption of substance and the use of enormous amount of money for the substance. The physiological changes occurring due to medicinal drugs are high blood pressure, lack of appetite, and risks of heart attack. Some of the physical consequences of drug abuse are tolerance, high blood pressure, loss of body weight and withdrawal from the society.
Substance abuse recovery strategy
Conducting school-based and community-based programs for providing accurate information on substance and its consequences, medical treatment, meditation, counseling, and other interventions through media and creating an atmosphere for the recovery from substances are some of the strategies.
Health services
Psychosocial aspect of health is an integrated perspective that focuses on mental, physical, emotional and environmental aspects of health. There is coordination between mind and body in determining the health of a person. He will be happy in the present life experiencing positive emotions. The common psychosocial problems in response to the psychosocial disturbances are depression, anxiety, phobias, schizophrenia and suicide tendency. “Several groups have found an association between progression of breast cancer and psychosocial factors including stressful life events, the expression of negative emotions – anger and anxiety – the presence of hopelessness, social support, and participating in psychosocial counseling.” (Mulder, Der Pompe, Spiegel, Antoni, & De Vries, 2007, Abstract, para.1).
The experience of intensive stressful life may lead to develop heart attack, head ache, giddiness and pain around chest. There are some factors that influence the adherence to medical advice. Patients who have not developed a relationship or rapport with clinicians, those who have no trust on the clinicians, and those who feel that they were treated improperly have the tendency to disregard the medical advice on the follow-up. Proper communication, general consideration encompassing collaborative relationship, ensuring family and medical professionals and considering patient’s perspective are main factors that influence the adherence to medical advice.
Health care delivery and management in US and other countries
All the health providers receive the record of the clinical information on patient by way of electronic system and there is a multidisciplinary team of health providers in US. Each one has vital roles in the treatment which is coordinated well to deliver high quality and value care. Other countries do not have such a coordinated and organized system in health care. Some of the developed countries have well organized system in the health delivery. US health delivery system is mightier in its organization and coordination and each health provider can assess the state of the patient through electronic health delivery system.
Role of health psychology in hospitals
Specialized medicine has been developed with the use of advanced technologies and 60% of doctors in US are specialists. “The high value that Americans place on the advanced technology made specialty care synonymous with high quality care. This perception may be accurate when the most appropriate treatment choice for an illness requires a specialist’s services, but because specialist’ service are generally more costly, their inappropriate use generates unnecessary expense.” (Sultz, & Young, 2008, p.231).
The inability to cope with stress will result in low level of motivation, emotional disturbances and low level of academic performance. There are various psychological preparation methods to deal with stress, such as therapeutic techniques or interventions and counseling. “Nonpharmacologic strategies are a key component in an overall effort to reduce the anxiety and pain associated with minor pediatric medical procedures such as venipuncture and immunization.1 Behavioral interventions typically involve teaching coping skills, inducing relaxation, or providing distraction.” (Zempsky, 2009, Introduction, para.1).
Pain and its management
According to the psychological perception on pain, it has two elements -emotion and sensation. We learn the experience of pain from childhood when injury and illness happen to us. It has the involvement of various factors like cognitive judgments and effective reaction and psychosocial situation. In physiological point of view there are two components in the experience of pain. First one is the perception of actual tissue damage and the second one is the state of unpleasantness. There are different types of treatment for the experience of pain, such as surgical, pharmaceutical, behavioral and cognitive.
Surgical and pharmaceutical approach is physiological treatment while cognitive and behavioral is psychological. If the client adopts psychological practices, pain will be relieved and at the same time the client will assimilate the coping skills whenever he experiences the same situation. The client will experience the side effects after the physiological treatment.
Coping with Chronic and Life-Threatening Illnesses
Though the chronically ill patients have more stress in the initial days of the confirmation of the disease, in course of time they will adjust with it. The factors that facilitate the patient’s adjustment to chronic illness are self efficacy, optimism, social and family support and self management. Self efficacy of the patient will help him to practice a set of health behavior. Optimism and self management also have a vital role to adjust with the chronic illness. A convenient and happy social atmosphere will certainly reduce the intensity of the chronic disease. The patient should be reasonably active to carryout health behavior.
The terminally ill patients also suffer from anger, deprivation, rejection, frustration etc. Atmosphere in the family, people’s attitude toward the disease and the patient, patient’s coping skills, positive attitude of the patient, optimistic thought and active behavior are main factors that lead to the adaptation to the terminal illness.
Health psychology and health care delivery
The value of health psychology is high since it determines the relationship of different factors such as psychological, social and biological. It focuses on the prevention, promotion, rehabilitation of the diseases. It is a comprehensive health care system in the health care policy which applies scientific, professional and educational developments in the health care system.
A comprehensive health psychology program
The health psychology program must include three dimensions. They are prevention of disease, promotion of health and the rehabilitation of the disabled. The prevention should encompass biopsychosocial factors that lead to the disease. Health promotion also should include the enhancement of the whole personality. Rehabilitation processes also will help the patients to lead a productive life even though they are disabled.
Conclusion
Health psychology is a discipline that focuses on providing comprehensive health to the people. There is a relationship between mind and body; so also there is an interconnection between health and psychology. There are biopsychosocial factors that may lead to the disease, health psychology deals with the promotion, prevention and rehabilitation of the disease identifying the biopsyhoscial factors. This paper presented various topics on stress and its effect on health, health and behavior, substance use and abuse, health services, the role of health psychology in hospitals, perception of pain and its management, coping with chronic and life threatening illness and health psychology and health care delivery.
Reference List
Glossary: Health psychology. (2009). Times Wellness. Web.
Lucas, T., Alexander, S., Firestone, I., & Lebreton, J M. (2008). Just world beliefs, perceives stress, and health behavior: the impact of a procedurally just world: Abstract. Psychology & Health, 23(7), 849-865. Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group. Informa World. Web.
Mulder, C L., Der Pompe, G V., Spiegel, D., Antoni, M H., & De Vries, M J. (2007). Article: Do psychological factors influence the course of breast cancer? A review of recent literature, methodological problems and future directions: Abstract. Psycho Oncology, 1(3), 155-167. Wiley InterScience. Web.
Sultz, H A., & Young, K M. (2008). Health care USA: Understanding its organization and Delivery: The growth of specialized medicine. Jones & Bartlett Publishers. 231.
Uziell-Miller, N D., & Dresner, N. (2002). Addressing substance abuse in obstetrics and gynecology: Abstract. Primary Care Update for OB/GYNS, 9(3), 98-104. Science Direct. Web.
Zempsky, W. (2009). Nonpharmacological strategies to reduce anxiety/ pain in pediatric patients: Introduction. Pain. Web.