Biopsychosocial Model Including the Variables of Gender and Personality in Terms of Treatment - Research Paper Example

? Chronic Illness Task The Biopsychosocial Model Including the Variables of Gender, Culture, and Personality In Terms Of Well Being and Treatment Health psychology is a branch of psychology, which deals with causes of illness, treatment, the relationship between health, illness, mind and body. It is also tries to explain the role of psychology in health and illness by explaining how the human body reacts to different situations causing people to either live in health or be sickly. Human beings are multifaceted, and their illness can be caused by a myriad of factors, which depend on the psychological makeup and environment in general. The bypsychosocial model regards to chronic illness as a combination of factors and tends to bend away from the belief that chronic illness or pain is a result of external factors such as viruses (Glaser, et al, 2002). The bypsychosocial model looks at illness as a combination of factors, which are biological, psychological, and social factors, which lead to illnesses of different kinds. For example, behaviors such as smoking could lead to illnesses and the bypsychsocial model tries to explain the relationship between the different factors, which result to illness in people. Health psychology explains that if a person is ill, they have to be treated wholesomely, and this implies that even their behaviors and beliefs also need to be treated so that the medical procedure is successful. This implies that people are responsible for their treatment since the way they let their bodies to react to medicines goes a long way in determining their health. Therefore, medication alongside with change of behavior and beliefs are instrumental in increasing the progress and success of a medical procedure. In other cases, people may not require medical procedure to be healed of certain diseases, but will only need a psychologist to try talking them out of a disease. This implies that at times, healing diseases are just a matter of the right thinking and ensuring that behaviors are changed so that there is a balance between the biological, psychological and social aspects of people’s lives. The biopsychosocial model is of utmost importance in treatment and management of chronic diseases, and this is because management of the diseases solely lies on the patients’ ability to control it more that it does on the doctors. Chronic diseases are the major cause of deaths today, and they are taking up huge populations due to lack of a proper illness management system. Treatment of chronic diseases has been a great challenge in the world today since they are either difficult to diagnose, there are no treatments, or if they are available they have side effects on the patients. Chronic diseases also change over time, and this makes their management extremely difficult if the right procedures are not used. Causes of chronic diseases are behavioral rather than being biological, and this means that applying bypsychosocial model to their treatment is the best method to use. Reports by the World Health Organization indicate that the factors that lead to most chronic diseases are tobacco use, physical inactivity, bad behaviors and not having proper diet. Chronic diseases are challenging since the sick person’s life may be interfered with, and they may not be able to lead a normal life after they are diagnosed. For example, lung cancer cause by tobacco smoking may make an individual lose meaning for their life and continue leading a reckless life since they are sure they will die. Applying the bypsychosocial model in treatment of the person with lung cancer will involve them changing their behaviors and stopping smoking in order to try to manage the disease. The fear of continuing to live is eminent in most people with chronic illnesses, and the biomedical approach ignores the need to include the social and psychological factors of chronic illness treatment. The biopsychosocial model assumes that psychological and physiological aspects of people are related, and an imbalance between the two will lead to illness (Michie, et al, 2003). It also assumes that psychological and biological aspects of people are bidirectional, and the health outcomes of people will be determined by how the two are combined to come up with appropriate treatment. Research shows that gender plays a fundamental role in the handling of chronic illnesses, and generally, women are more susceptible to the biopsychosocial treatment. Women are generally easy to convince and to talk to more than men are. They will give out their inner most secrets, and this implies that applying psychology to treat their ailments will be easier than men will. Men, on the other hand, will want to keep their issues to themselves and it may be hard to convince them in some situations. Culture plays a crucial role in treatment of chronic illnesses using the bypsychosocial model since the beliefs that people have may restrict them from undergoing a certain procedure. Personality will be instrumental in treatment of chronic diseases since the attitudes of people will determine how well they respond to treatment using the bypyschological model. This is because some people may be reluctant to share information about their illness hence this will undermine their treatment. Applying the bipsychological model in treatment of chronic illness will entail, using medical, psychological and behavioral aspects of an individual to treat their condition and this will be instrumental in managing the illness (Michie, et al, 2003. The Nature of Stress and Its Impact in the Etiology, Course, and Treatment of Medical Illness and Psychological Disorders Stress refers to negative emotional experiences that cause an imbalance in people’s feelings. Stress is often associated with challenging situations, but not all stressful situations are negative since some amount is necessary for survival. Stress is felt when one feels frustrated, and the biopsychosocial component are the external and internal environments, and the interaction between the two to cause a stressful situation. Therefore, stress will involve the interaction between the stressor, which is an external force and distress, which is the effect the stressor has on an individual. People will be stressed by different situations, and this implies that what is stressful to one person may not be stressful to another. This is because people will perceive situations differently hence, there may be a mismatch between the stressful situations for different people (Sapolsky, 2003). People ability to cope with stress will also differ hence stress can be the cause of illness to some people and not to others, so it all depends on how individuals perceive the situations they face every day, and their ability to shun or accept the negative perceptions to affect the thinking. Stress is caused by various factors, and there are models that have been developed over time, which try to explain the nature of stress. Cannon’s ‘fight or flight’ model, which is one of the oldest models, suggests that external forces prompt people to either fight or run away from the externalities. Cannon describes stress as a mental process, and the reaction of an individual to either escape or fight the stressful situation will determine the impact the situation has on them. Selye’s general adaptation syndrome describes stress as a combination of alarm, resistance and exhaustion phases. The alarm phase is at the instance an individual encounters a stressful scenario, while resistance involves the stage where the individual tries to fight the effects of the stressful situation, and finally, the exhaustion stage comes when the individual has encountered the stressful situations several times and cannot offer any more resistance. The life events theory describes stress because of the daily experiences that people go through every day, which cause an imbalance to their emotions. This theory further explains the relationship between events n life and illness and stipulates that experiences play a crucial role in determining the health status of an individual. Such change of events may be death of a loved one, which may cause their relatives or close friends to be depressed and become ill. Changes in life events have the potential of increasing stress on an individual hence causes illness, as this theory explains. For example, death of a wife could result to changes in the way someone lives and this could be the source of stressful situations in an individual’s life. According to this assumption, the intensity of stress caused by a change of events is determined by the overall impact the event has on the individual concerned. The most recent model to be explained is the model of appraisal and transaction, which explains that an individuals psychological makeup will determine whether they are stressed by situations or not. This is because how they perceive the situation will greatly determine if it stresses them or not. People will perceive situations as irrelevant, positive or negative and then evaluate it according to their abilities to cope with things. The association between stress is not definite since there are many factors, which will determine is stress cause illness in people. This will include, personality, coping styles, social help, events in life and the ability to control stress just to name a few. Personality will imply that a person’s attitude and approach to situations will determine if the stressful situation has an impact on them by making them ill or not. Some people will have a negative approach to situations and this means that they will be stressed by minor issues, which could translate to them being ill. Ability of an individual to cope with stress will play a crucial role in eliminating disease since if a person can control how their emotions are affected by stress, they will be able to do away with the chances of being sick. Social support comes in when the environment that the stressed person is in gives them support to deal with the situation hence chances of stress causing illness will be minimized. However, life events, which are the major cause of stress, may cause diseases since the body will be used to getting stressed, and will lose its capability to deal with situations since an individual may be weakened emotionally to the point that they cannot take any more pressure (Michie, et al, 2003). The result could be weakening of the body’s protection mechanism, which will make the body susceptible to infections and even psychological disorders. Moreover, stress will affect the behavior of people, and they may take up behaviors such as smoking and abuse of drugs that lead to psychological disorders. These behaviors could lead to diseases such as lung cancer and other behavioral, related diseases. In addition, people under stress may engage in dangerous activities, which could expose them to diseases. Often, stress has a negative impact on physiological processes and could lead to people having high blood pressure, sweating and other symptoms since the adrenalin levels go high, and this could be the cause of heart and kidney related diseases. The Application of Research and Theoretical Concepts Used To Design Programs for Positive Change in Personal and Group Health Habits and Lifestyles Maintaining healthy habits and lifestyles will incorporate health behavior in the daily lives of people in order to make them live disease free lives. Behavioral oriented approach meant to promote health will focus on change of behaviors, which could result to ill health. The most common behaviors leading to diseases are smoking, unsafe sex, poor diet and activities which could increase the probability of acquiring a disease or being injured. Today, the most common causes of diseases are the activities or behaviors that people undertake in their daily lives, which make them vulnerable to diseases. Moreover, stress plays a crucial role in many deaths since it makes people hopeless and lack a sense of direction in life. This implies that people need to have behavioral change in the direction and way of life so that they are less vulnerable to diseases. Having an understanding of the factors that affect health behaviors, coping and the relationship between doctors and their patients will increase the efficacy of biopsychosocial treatment of illnesses (Ryan, 2010). The factors that will influence health behaviors are demographic factors, which include age gender and financial capabilities, social and environmental factors, and personality. There are several models, which are designed to explain health behaviors of different people. The health belief model entails an individual recognizing the situations that are threats to their health and avoiding them in order to live a healthy life. The health locus control entails an individual accepting the fact they have a disease and learning to control it. If a disease is controlled properly, chances of it progressing are minimal since an individual will know the symptoms for the disease and learn how to control it. The theory of planned behavior elaborates that a person should act in ways knowing that the actions they engage in should improve their health. The self-regulatory model entails an individual creating a balance between their biological, physiological and social aspects (Ryan, 2010). People should ensure that they have a balance in the three so that they are able to live a healthy life. An imbalance of the three may make someone ill since there will be conflicts in the body and mind. Coping will enable a person to maintain a stable psychological well-being although they are aware that they have a disease, and this will be instrumental in the healing and maintenance process. Sick people have to cope with their constraints by not letting them get to their head and making them lose the sense of life. If people learn to cope with their diseases and learn ways of ensuring that they are stress free, it will go a long way in increasing their life span. This is because what one feeds the brain with is likely to manifest itself in the body .For example, one can have the mindset that they are sick and cannot be treated, and this will make them stressed and may die from depression. However, if the6y accept that they are sick and learn to live with the disease they will live a longer life since their psychological make up will not be distorted. Research shows that family members and the society play a crucial role in bypsychosocial treatment since if they take good care of the chronically sick people, they will feel loved and not want to give up. However, if they alienate the chronically sick people, they will not live long since they may die from depression since they have no one to share their problems. Finally, the relationship between a doctor and the chronically ill patient is crucial in maintenance and treatment of diseases. Concordance is the term used to describe this relationship, and it is important since the two will communicate and share ideas depending on the state of the patient. For example, some form of medication may be affecting the patient in some way, and when they communicate with the doctor, the treatment or medicine can be changed to a more appropriate one that the patient is comfortable taking. This implies that the effectiveness of treatment decisions will be made better through the constant interaction between doctors and their patients. Therefore, for people to ensure that have a healthy life styles, they must ensure that they change on behaviors that could cause diseases, cope with diseases if they already have them and have proper relationships with their medical practitioners. Pain Pain is a condition in which individuals feel unpleasant and uncomfortable in their senses and emotions. Pain is mainly connected to tissue damage and rapture because it is a perception of people that when tissues are destroyed they feel pain. Pain is defined into three categories, which are sensory, cognitive, and motivational aspect (Ogden, 2003). Pain is usually connected to the location and intensity in the sensory aspect while in the motivational aspect is connected to depressions. Cognitive aspects connect pain to the thoughts that may arouse pain. How individuals perceive pain may not be connected directly to external injury sources. This is because the body interprets stimuli indifferent methods, thus the individual may have direct contact with the injury source, but he stills complains of pain (Ogden, 2003). Even after healing persons may grumble of pain because of the psychological association that may connect the individual with painful circumstances. It is a reality that pain is a perceived condition because individuals can complain of having pain even if there is no physical source of pain. Pain is defined in terms of perception because even if there is no physical source, the patient is believed to be telling the truth. Physicians tend to offer diagnosis depending how a patient is complaining of pain. It is because of this reason that the physician should create a physician- patients dialogue to give appropriate diagnosis. Without this dialogue, the physicians tend to offer wrong prognosis to the patients. In order to understand pain, it is rational to understand the neurophysiology and neurochemistry of the body. This enables individuals to comprehend how pain is transmitted and what makes pain be persistent. Nociceptive pain is a mechanism that is used to sustain pain in the body (Humphris, 2010). The activation of tissues influenced nociceptive pain in the body system. The activation of tissues is due to stimuli perception that causes the transmission and modulation of pain. The injury of tissues results in productions of some neurons that are used to locate the source of pain. These neurons are mainly located in the skin and muscles. The production of these neurons has helped in coming up of new therapies for cubing pain. Pain is usually distinguished on the magnitude that makes an individual suffer emotionally and physically. Even if there is, no physical appearance of an injury a person might be experiencing internal pain and thus affecting his emotional stability (Humphris, 2010). Pain usually makes an individual behave differently, and this make the physician understand the seriousness of the pain. Physicians rely on the patient’s word on describing pain, and he should use this to determine the best diagnosis. What patients confess about pain usually tells people how the nervous system operates. This is because the systems detects when something is wrong and reacts differently for the problem to be corrected. This is the main reason why people complain of pain and physicians should use the patients experience to understand the pain and provide the correct diagnosis. Populace responds differently to pain depending on their genetic make up, their cultural background, and age. There are groups of patients who need particular attention in addressing the magnitude of their pain. This people included the children and people with chronic diseases. Pain is usually categories into sharp pain and chronic pain. Acute pain mainly persists for approximately seven days, and it is connected to surgical experience. Chronic pain usually persists for a period of three months, and it is mainly associated to fatal accidents. Pain has both helpful and negative implications (Austine & Boyd, 2010). The sharp pain plays a positive role by warning and alerting patients on tissue damage. Acute pain usually influences the process of healing in the body as it immobilizes the healing factors. The negative implications of pain include emotional instability, which mainly interferes with the mood of individuals. Acute pain also affects the functioning of the heart because a person may experience hypertension. Persistent, acute pain can cause chronic pains in not dealt with at lower stages. Hospitals and doctors have acknowledged the importance of efficient pain management, and they have incorporated it in the hospital system. Postoperative pain management is significant because it helps in reduction of patients suffering. This management technique helps in quick recovery of patients thus early discharge from hospitals. Assessment is a crucial factor that should be incorporated in postoperative pain management because physicians are able to evaluate a patient when at rest and moving. This assessment helps to identify the degree of functioning of a patient. The continuous assessment helps in determining the appropriate diagnosis that should be given to a patient. Assessment is an excellent tool of postoperative pain management because the physicians are able to detect when pain is at optimum. Physicians usually detect whether pain is experienced most by a patient when he is at rest or when he is moving. Assessment has proven to be a beneficial tool for determining the correct method of diagnosis and determining whether treatment is responding. Assessment usually helps the doctor to understand the pain experience of patients who do not talk and children (Austine & Boyd, 2010). It also helps in describing pain of emotional disturbed individuals. Assessment tool is used to measure pain in hospitals thus the medical staff usually gives the same report despite the magnitude of the pain. What a patient says pain feels like should be used as the assessment tool in postoperative pain management. Management of pain Pain can be managed medically by use of certain drugs, which have the ability to subside pain. These drugs are known as painkillers and are usually prescribed on the magnitude of the pain. Painkillers should not be consumed every time because the body might become immune to them; hence, it is advisable to use them only when it is appropriate (L’Albet, 2007). Pain management is managed medically by regular visits and checkups to the doctor. This helps the doctor understand whether the treatment he prescribed is working. There are psychological techniques that are used in management of pain. These psychological methods are mostly helpful to patients who are suffering emotional pain. Visiting psychiatrist is one of the best psychological methods that are used in management of pain. The patient is able to share things that are troubling him with the doctor thus suggesting amicable solutions. Another psychological technique that is appropriate in pain management is joining support groups. The support groups helps patients to accept their pain thus advising strategies of subsiding pain. Joining support groups is a convenient way of managing stress because the patient realizes that he is not the only one suffering pain. How health psychology helps in coping with pain Health psychology is appropriate in management of pain because it address a wide range of issues that causes pain. It combines the medical aspect, social and psychological aspect. Patients and families do not only dwell with the disease as a major contributor of pain but they look at the possibilities of social and psychological conditions that may cause pain (L’Albet, 2007). Through health psychology, a patient understands that he has a responsibility of management of pain. For example, the patient acknowledges that it is his responsibility to take medication. Health psychology educates the family members not to look at the patient as victim but as a person who has the responsibility of reducing pain. Patients are able to cope with pain through the help of health psychology because they understand that sickness and health are concurrent. Both of this conditions interchange thus the patient has hope that pain will be subsided and his health restored. Patients and their families are able to cope with pain and grief because health psychology helps patients to engage in healthy behaviors that will reduce pain. Health psychology cautions on health behaviors that may arouse pain, thus patient should avoid these behaviors. These include social behaviors like smoking nod taking alcohol, which may ruin the health of a patient. Health psychology helps patients cope with pain in that they are able to determine the behaviors that may lead to illness and pain. When patients understand that they are able and are responsible to control their illness it becomes easy to cope with pain. This makes patients feel acknowledge that the pain is not the responsible of the doctor but it is their responsible. Health psychology helps patients to cope with pain because the patients are advised on the importance of contacting health professions. Patients are able to contact different health professionals to get the skills of managing the pain. Health professionals range from physicians, psychologists, and psychiatrists. Combinations of advises given by these health professions help the patients to manage their pain and cope with grief. Health psychology assists patients to cope with pain because they able to accept their condition. The first step to cope with pain is to accept the illness and then come up with strategies to deal with pain. Research has proven that patients who accept their condition deal with pain easily hence, they are able to respond to treatment effectively (L’Albet, 2007). Patients who deny their conditions suffer much pain than patients who have accepted their conditions. Health psychology recommends patients to use various intervention strategies for coping with pain. This is because the use of various intervention strategies will help patients to choose variety of strategies for dealing with pain. Patients are able to choose an intervention that will help them cope with pain. Health psychology has helped patients acknowledge that to deal with pain it is important to look at the root cause of the pain. When patients understand why they are suffering from pain, they are able to come with a\appropriate strategies to deal with pain. Many patients are unable to cope with their pain because they do not know the root cause of their disease. Patients who identify what is arousing pain are able to avoid these situations. The above factor has recommended health psychology to be an important factor in managing pain thus coping with grief. References Austine, W. and Boyd, M. (2010). Psychiatric and mental health nursing for Canadian practice. New York: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Glaser, J., McGuire, L., Robles, T. & Glaser, R. (2002). Psychoneuroimmunology: Psychological Influences on Immune Function and Health. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 70, 537-547. Humphris, G. (2010). Health psychology. Retrieved on November 1, 2011 from: < http://medicine.st-and.ac.uk/postgraduate/msc/healthpsychology.pdf> L’Albet, L. (2007). Low-cost approaches to promote physical and mental health: theory, research, and practice. London: Springer. Michie, S., Miles, J. & Weinman, J. (2003). Patient-Centeredness in Chronic Illness: What Is It And Does It Matter? Patient Education and Counseling, 51, 197–206. Ogden, J. (2003). Health Psychology. Retrieved on November 1st from, Ryan, S. (2010). Applying the Biopsychosocial Model to the Management of Rheumatic Disease. Rheumatology. Sapolsky, R. (2003). Taming Stress. Scientific American, 289 (3), 86–95. Read More