Health Psychology Flashcards

Flashcards for Health Psychology Lecture Review

Health Psychology

Devoted to understanding psychological influences on how people stay healthy, why they become ill, and how they respond when they do get ill.

Health (WHO Definition)

A complete state of physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

Health Promotion and Prevention Strategies

Changing behavior, developing new models of behavior change, identifying and targeting preventative health behaviors, and helping to create a social context that promotes healthy choices.

Prevention and Treatment of Illness Strategies

Teaching stress management, helping patients follow treatment, screening at-risk individuals, focusing on vulnerable populations, and focusing on protective factors.

Etiology of Illness

The origins or causes of illness, including behavioral and social factors like alcohol consumption, smoking, exercise, and stress coping mechanisms.

Management of Serious Illnesses

Assessing quality of life, developing psychological pain management strategies (e.g., CBT), increasing treatment adherence, and providing support to the terminally ill.

Improving Health Care Systems and Policy

Improving the health care system and health policy by studying the impact of health institutions and professionals on people’s behavior.

Role of the Health Psychologist in Health Promotion

Intervening at the social or individual level to promote health and prevent illness.

Role of the Clinical Health Psychologist

Intervening at the individual and systems level to treat illness, slow disease progression, reduce disability, train staff, and provide consultation.

Health and Illness in Prehistoric Times

During prehistoric times mind and body were seen as intertwined. Disease was caused by evil spirits entering the body. Treatment involved exorcisms and drilling holes in skulls.

Ancient Greek Views on Health and Illness

Disease resulted when the four humors (blood, black bile, yellow bile, & phlegm) of the body were out of balance. Emphasized the importance of both mind and body.

Health and Illness in the Middle Ages

Disease was regarded as God's punishment for evildoing. Cure consisted of driving out evil forces or penance through prayer and good works. Physicians were mainly priests.

Health and Illness in the Renaissance

Medicine based on laboratory findings focused on bodily factors, leading to the biomedical model.

The Biomedical Model

Maintains that all illness can be explained on the basis of somatic bodily processes and that psychological and social processes are irrelevant to disease.

Freud and Conversion Hysteria

Specific unconscious conflicts can produce physical disturbances that symbolize repressed psychological conflicts.

Psychosomatic Medicine

Specific illnesses are produced by people’s internal conflicts. Identified ulcer-prone personality. Conflicts produce anxiety, which takes a psychological toll via nervous system, causing organic disturbances.

The Biopsychosocial Model

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

Clinical Implications of the Biopsychosocial Model

Explicit significance of the relationship between patient and practitioner. This relationship can improve a patient’s use of services, the efficacy of treatment, and the rapidity with which illness is resolved.

Acute Disorders

Short-term illnesses, often the result of a viral or bacterial invader and usually possible to cure. Declined due to treatment innovations and better public health.

Chronic Illness and Health Psychology

Diseases in which psychological and social factors are implicated as causes. Psychological issues arise in their management affecting family functioning and requiring self-monitoring.