Personal Believes Affecting Health - Essay Example

How Individual Beliefs About Illness Affect Health and Treatment: A Critical Discussion (Fill in with your information , etc.) How Individual Beliefs About Illness Affect Health and Treatment: A Critical Discussion The psychological factors which can reflect on health and illness and the altogether well being of a person are intensely intricate and highly relevant as a topic of critical discussion in the world of today. In order to truly understand how individual beliefs about illness affect health and treatment, the following questions must be addressed: 1. What is psychology 2. How can individual beliefs about illness affect health and treatment By discussing these two questions, a clearer and more understanding objective can be taken on this subject matter. This is what will be dissertated in the following. What is Psychology Psychology is considered to be "an academic field involving the study of the human mind and human behavior. Psychology also refers to the application of such knowledge to various spheres of human activity, including problems of individuals' daily lives and the treatment of mental illness." ("Wikipedia", 2006). Psychology is used to study the mental processes and behavior of individuals, and differs from subjects such as biology, sociology, anthropology, economics, political science, and neuroscience in many ways. Mainly - and perhaps most importantly - it differs in that it is primarily concerned with not only the biological or neural processes, but more so with the interaction of mental processes and behavior and the overall processes of a system. Psychology can be framed in terms of two particular theories: phenomenological and information processing. An understanding of the brain and its functions are also included in the psychological theory and practice, and the idea of psychology is connected with a vast amount of subjects in the general society of today. Health psychology is similar to basic psychology in many ways, but the differences are more crucial; it is the use of psychological principles to promote health and prevent illness. Health psychology seriously considers the biological, cognitive, behavioral, emotional, social, psychosomatic and environmental factors and how they relate to health and illness. The objective of this form of psychology is to determine the connections between psychological factors and how they relate to a person's health. There are specific behaviors which may lead a person to illness, and the primary purpose of health psychology is to determine these causations and to attempt to understand why a person would behave in this way. "There are many examples of this. Smoking, diet, and regular exercise all contribute to the formation of disease. Individuals with thrill seeking personalities are more likely to drive fast, making them more likely to injure themselves in car accidents." ("Wikipedia", 2006). How can Individual Beliefs About Illness Affect Health and Treatment In the health and treatment of a person, there are many factors which are undeniably involved. The psychology of a person and the matter in which it affects their well being is a crucial factor in this discussion, and must be properly understood and addressed. The Health Belief Model (HBM) was originally developed by Godfrey Hochbaum, Stephen Kegels and Irwin Rosenstock, and its initial purpose was to be "a systematic methodusedto explain and predict preventive health behavior." (McCormack Brown, 1999). In rather relative terms, the HBM focused on the relationship of health behaviors, practices and the utilization of health services. It was a rather intricate tool at the time it was created, but as of then has been revised to include general health motivation for the purpose of distinguishing illness and sick-role behavior from health behavior. In other words, the HBM studies the being of a person's motivation to undertake a health behavior and all the categories which this includes: individual perceptions, modifying behaviors, and likelihood of action. The Social Learning Theory has been considered to contribute to the HBM in several different ways: through multiple sources for acquiring expectations, learning through imitating others, and with self-efficiency. It is thought that once an individual perceives a threat to their health, and is otherwise forced to take action and understands that their perceived benefits are outweighed, that they will then most likely undertake the recommended preventive health action. The key descriptors considered to be in the health psychology mold are: perceived susceptibility, which includes the previously discussed factor of an individual perceiving threats to their health and therefore taking action upon it; perceived seriousness, which refers to the beliefs which a person holds that concerns the effects and seriousness of these affects a given disease or condition would have on one's well being; perceived benefits of taking action, which the taking of action by a person toward the prevention of a disease or toward at least taking the next step in dealing with an illness; barriers to taking action, which considers the barriers involved when a person does take action, which relate to the characteristics of a treatment and how it may be inconvenient, expensive, unpleasant, painful or upsetting; and cues to action, which refer to an individual's perception of the levels of susceptibility and seriousness and how they provide the force to act. "The physician's belief in the treatment and the patient's faith in the physician exert a mutually reinforcing effect; the result is a powerful remedy that is almost guaranteed to produce an improvement and sometimes a cure." (Skrabanek & McCormick, Follies and Fallacies in Medicine, p.13). A similar and yet completely separate issue is the placebo effect. The placebo effect is considered to be "the measurable, observable, or felt improvement in health not attributable to treatment." (Carroll, 2005). Believed by many people to be actually due to the placebo itself in one way or another, a placebo is a treatment or some form of medication which is believed by the taker of the specific treatment to be innocuous. Returning back to the topic of psychology, the placebo effect is highly contradictive in a way in that some believe that the effect itself is purely psychological; in other words, that it is all in people's minds. These critics argue that the only reason the 'treatment' has a positive and often completely curing effect is because the person believes it will work, and that the treatment itself could be entirely false or useless, and yet the effect could still be the same. The psychological factors are incredibly arguable, and it is believed by some that the effectiveness of Prozac and other drugs may be attributed almost entirely to the placebo effect. In other words, the administrator of the treatment has a subjective feeling of improvement, and therefore believes that is the treatment that is making the improvement, when in all actuality - in these critics' minds at least - it is simply psychologically that they are feeling better, which as an end result actually does make them feel as if they have had treatment and gotten well. These people also opinionate that if a person were to take sugar (or 'fake') pills in place of the Prozac pills for instance - without knowing that they were actually taking the 'fake' pills, of course - that the outcome could be just the same. The person would believe they were taking treatment to cure themselves and would therefore feel better, when in all actuality they were taking no form of drug at all. It was then purely psychological. Chiropractic care is a health care profession with an underlying principle of thought that certain health problems can be prevented and treated through the use of spinal adjustments in order to correct subluxations (spinal dysfunctions). The chiropractic profession is related to the topic of psychology in that it emphasizes the importance of healthy lifestyles and does not prescribe drugs or perform surgery to provide treatment to patients. Chiropractic treatment has become more accepted due to ongoing and consistent research and the changing attitudes of society towards alternative, noninvasive health care practices. Irving Kirsch, a psychologist at the University of Connecticut, is one of the many who believe that the effectiveness of Prozac and similar drugs may be attributed to the placebo effect. After he and another psychologist named Guy Sapirstein analyzed 19 clinical trials of antidepressants, they concluded that the expectation of improvement, and not adjustments in brain chemistry (for which drugs such as Prozac would consider to be categorized in) accounted for 75% of the drugs' effectiveness. "The critical factor," said Kirsch "is our beliefs about what's going to happen to us. You don't have to rely on drugs to see profound transformation." (Kirsch, 1998). The psychological view a person has undoubtedly affects the state of their rehabilitation and the time involved. In other words, depending on the general temperament of a person, the healing time involved may be quicker or slower, due to what sort of temperament they have. A 'happy' person who is optimistic and who has a positive outlook on life is easily more likely to heal quicker and to not perceive pain as strongly as a person who is pessimistic or depressed. Persons who feel like 'victims of life' often take advantage in a way of illness; they perceive the pain to be even greater than it is, and hold a negative attitude which as an end result will only extend or often even ignore or dismiss altogether the process of healing. In such fields as chiropractic field, where psychology plays an obvious role, and in the majority of the field of medicine itself as a general topic, the matter of psychology is truly one of great importance. Psychology plays a major role in the health, treatment, and overall wellness of human beings, and must always be constantly remembered and highly considered during any discussion regarding medicine. The temperament of a person greatly affects the extension - if at all for that matter - of the healing process, and can act as a truly negative factor towards the rehabilitation of a person. Negative attitudes can create numerous problems, namely that the treatment being used in an attempt to make the person well may be ignored in all entirety; just as a person can make themselves well by believing that they are well, as can a person who believes that there is no hope. Physicians and psychologists alike make it basically a part of their daily occupational routine to enforce onto their patients the importance of being optimistic and of having a positive outlook on life. Psychology is scientifically vouched for playing a major role in the healing process, and the importance of having a positive psychological outlook is a primary standard which should be properly upheld. Through facts and evidence it is rather easy to see just how greatly one's personal beliefs can affect their health and treatment. The fact that psychology plays an incredibly active role in the study of how individual beliefs of a person affect their own well being proves that the subject of psychology must constantly be held in high regard when discussing any field of medicine. References Carroll, Robert T. (2005) Placebo Effect, Retrieved February 8, 2006, from http://skepdic.com/placebo.html. Kirsch, I. & Sapirstein, G. (1998) 'Listening to Prozac but Hearing Placebo: A Meta-Analysis of Antidepressant Medication', Prevention and Treatment, 1(1)2, Article A. McCormack Brown, K. (1999) Health Belief Model, Retrieved February 9, 2006, from http://hsc.usf.edu/kmbrown/Health_Belief_Model_Overview.htm. Skrabanek, P., Ph.D. & McCormick, J., M.D. (1990) Follies and Fallacies in Medicine. Promethus, p.13-40. "Wikipedia" (2006) Psychology, Retrieved February 8, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology. Read More