health psychology

• health- refers to complete emotional, mental and physical well-being of an individual.
• Biomedical- health and illness viewed in terms of physiology.
• Biopsychosocial- Biological, psychological/behavioural and social factors interact to determine health and illness
• Health as a continuum- visual tool that can be used to help people make healthy choices in their lives.
• Health belief model- Is a model that helps to guide and promotes healthy behaviours and disease prevention programs
• Matarazzo's (1980)- looked at the promotion and maintains of health and the prevention and treatment of illness, health and dysfunction
• Becker et al (1978)- use the HBM to explain mother's compliance with asthma treatment of their children. found a positive correlations between compliance and perception of severity and perception of susceptibility of asthma attacks. Also being married and highly educated also correlated positively with compliance (demographic factors)
• :( with the HBM, is that some aspects of it may be better predictors of behaviour the others; Schofield found that cue to action were particularly important for adults with COPD. these included internal cues.
• :) with the HBM- is that knowledge of aspects of the HBM are used to try to modify behaviour. since 2002 in the uk is has been the law for cigarette packaging to carry health warnings, this is to raise awareness of the severity of the health outcomes associated with smoking
• Demographic factors- factors like age, race and gender act on our health beliefs
• Perceived seriousness- how severe any illness would be for the person
• Perceived susceptibility- how vulnerable to ill health a person considers themselves to be
• Perceived benefits and barriers- weighing up the positive outcomes with the inconveniences of behaviour change
• Health motivation- how much a person values their health
• Self efficacy- How capable a person feels of changing their behaviour
• Cue to action- May turn thinking about change into actual change by increasing awareness of issue. Example include experiences symptoms (internal) and professional advice (external)
• Internal Locus of control - the belief that your own effort, skills and abilities determine the important things that happen to them in life. This implies that the person is more likely to engage in health-protective behaviour because they expect their own actions to have a positive effect on their health
• External locus of control- the belief that the important things that happen to them in life are the result of chance, luck and the power of others. Implies that the person is less likely to engage in health-protective behaviour since they do think their own actions will improve their health