Health psychology

Annotations:

• growing focus. All major killers have psychological factors in common.
• Understanding psychological influences on how people stay healthy, why they become ill, how they respond when they get ill.

1. Biomedical vs biopsychosocial

   Attachments:

   • Mental Illness (Introduction)
2. Recent developments:
   1. Health promotion
   2. Psych states +illness

      Annotations:

      • Cognitive factors Stress Coping
   3. Support

      Annotations:

      • social factors
   4. Pain

      Annotations:

      • +management
      1. Defining

         Annotations:

         • Defining: sharp/dull, hot/cold, 0-10 scale, how long, cause, had it before... Pain rating scales and diaries. visual analogue scale - mark on a line.
         • Chronic/recurrent: flares up. Chronic/benign: all the time. Chronic/progressive: keeps getting worse.
      2. Expectancy --> heightened experience

         Annotations:

         • anxiety, depression, boredom exacerbates pain
      3. Always a real experience

         Annotations:

         • should never be made to feel it's their fault
   5. Adherence to treatment
3. Contributions
   1. Increased emphasis on prevention + lifestyle
   2. Increased awareness of health living
   3. Increased emphasis on quality of life
   4. More integrative research + longitudinal studies
   5. Retrospective research
4. Adjusting to a chronic illness

   Annotations:

   • Acute: <6 months. Chronic: long term. Influence views of present and future. Have to change lifestyle.
   1. 1. Shock

      Annotations:

      • --> denial, avoidance
      • but humans are resilient. only 20-40% get clinically depressed.
      • First phases of coping are similar regardless of whether illness is acute or chronic.
   2. 2. Period focused on coping: denial, grief
   3. 3. Come to reality, reach some adjustment
5. Social work response:
   1. Get them to avoid denying seriousness
   2. Seeking info about problem + treatment
   3. Learning to provide one's own care
   4. Setting concrete limited goals
   5. Get a clear picture of pain
   6. Empathy+ respect
   7. Problem solving model

      Annotations:

      • for increased quality of life
   8. Externalise pain

      Annotations:

      • separate them from it.
   9. Build identity in other areas
   10. Need to identify personal reaction

       Annotations:

       • + identify it from the case you're working with. strive to understand their worldview. debrief.