Introduction to Health Psychology

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Introduction to Health Psychology
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Health Psychology

• Study of social, behavioural, cognitive, and
  emotional factors that influence the
• Maintenance of health
• Development of illness and disease
• Course of illness or disease
• Patients and familys response to illness and
  disease

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What is health, illness, and disease?
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World Health Definition of Health (1948)

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

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Health Concept
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SF-36 (John Ware et al., 1993) Social
Functioning

• in past 4 weeks, to what extent have
  physical/emotional problems interfered with
  normal social activities with family, friends,
  neighbors, or groups.
• in past 4 weeks, how much time has your
  physical/emotional problems interfered with your
  social activities (like visiting with friends and
  relatives)?

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SF-36 (John Ware et al., 1993)

• Role limitations due to physical health Do you
  have any of the following problems with work or
  other regular daily activity as a result of your
  physical health?
• Cut down on time spent on work
• Accomplished less than you would like
• Limited in the kind of work you could do
• Had difficulty performing work(took more effort)

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SF-36 (John Ware et al., 1993)

• Role limitation due to emotional problem Do you
  have any of the following problems with work or
  other regular daily activity as a result of any
  emotional problems?
• Cut down on time spent at work
• Accomplished les than you would like
• Didnt do work or other activities as carefully
  as usual.

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What are your health risks?For each item, answer
YES or No.
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What are your health risks?For each item, answer
YES or No.
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Estimated contributions of different factors to
health status.
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Health Psychologist

• Scientists who research the area
• Health promotion intervene at the social (e.g.,
  government policy, community) or individual level
  to promote health and prevent illness and
  disease.
• Clinical health psychologist intervene at the
  individual level to treat illness, slow or
  prevent disease progression, and reduce
  disability.

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Health Psychology

• Development or progression of illness and disease
• Etiology
• Individuals and familys response to illness and
  disease
• Outcomes

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Relation of health psychology to other
health-related fields
Medicine Psychosomatic Cardiology Oncology, etc.
Health Education Nutrition
Sociology Nutrition Exercise Phys.
Physiology
Psychology
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History of Medicine
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History of Medicine
2. Ancient Greeks
Body Mind
4. Contemporary View
3. Middle-Ages
Body Mind
Socio-behavioural
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Supernatural or Magical BeliefDisease resulted
from

• Sorcery
• Breach of social taboo
• Object intrusion
• Supernatural possession
• Losing ones sole

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Treatments

• Confession and appeasing of the gods.
• Magical sucking to remove the intrusive object.
• Drive out evil spirits by using vile concoctions
  such as animal excrement or even torture.
• Trephination

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Greeks Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.)

• Origin of the view that disease is a natural
  process.
• Humoral theory
• View that disease occurs when the four fluids of
  the body are out of balance
• Four fluids are blood, black bile, yellow bile,
  and phlegm.
• Personality types

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Hippocrates - Treatments
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Evolving view of diseases

• Anatomical pathology
• Belief that disease was localized in anatomy
  (16th to 18th Centuries)
• Tissue pathology
• Specific tissues could become diseased while
  others remain healthy (Late 1800s)
• Cellular pathology
• Belief that life resided in cells and so cells
  must be the place to look for disease (19th
  century)

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Evolving view of diseases

• Germ theory
• Discovery that particles in the air that could
  not seen (e.g., bacteria) could cause disease.
• Magic bullet
• A specific cure could be found for every ailment
  that restore the person to perfect health.
• Biopsychosocial model
• Mind, body, and environment interact in causing
  disease.

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History of Medicine
Ancient Greeks
Body Mind
Contemporary View
Middle-Ages
Body Mind
Socio-behavioural
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Psychosomatic Medicine

• Freud (1856-1939)
• Cannon (1932)
• Dunbar (1930)
• Alexander (1940s 1950s)

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Biopsychosocial Model of Disease

• Biology
• Genetic variability
• Anatomy
• Physiology

• Pathogens
• Germs
• Toxins

• Social
• Family
• Society
• Friends, etc.

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Biopsychosocial Model

• Psychological component
• Behaviour (adoption and maintenance)
• Emotional (feelings)
• Cognition (thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes)
• Personality characteristic ways of thinking and
  feeling

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Important Contributions of Psychology to Health

• Has provided techniques useful in changing
  behaviours that affect health and illness.
• Is committed to keeping people healthy rather
  than waiting to only treat them when they become
  ill.
• Long history of developing reliable and valid
  measures for assessing health-related factors.
• Has contributed a solid foundation of scientific
  methods for studying such behaviours.

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Please respond to each of these items with YES or
NO.
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Please respond to each of these items with YES or
NO.
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Please respond to each of these items with YES or
NO.
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Research Methods Case Studies

• In depth analysis of one individual
• Type of single-subject research design
• Advantage is a more complete analysis of the
  individual
• Disadvantage is that it can magnify sampling
  errors

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Correlational Studies

• Yield degree of relationship between two
  variables
• Type of descriptive research design
• Advantage is that it can examine variables that
  cannot be experimentally manipulated (e.g., IQ
  and occupational status).
• Disadvantage is that it cannot determine
  causality.

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Cross-Sectional Study Designs

• Compares groups at one point in time (e.g., age
  groups, ethnic groups, disease groups)
• Advantage is that it is an efficient way to
  identify possible group differences because you
  can study them at one point in time.
• Disadvantage is that you cannot rule out cohort
  effects.

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Personality and Hypertension,The effect of
Hypertension Awareness (Irvine et al. 1989)
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Personality and Hypertension Effect of
Hypertension Awareness
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Personality and Hypertension Effect of
Hypertension Awareness
Group 1 gt Group 2 Group 3 (p lt 0.01)
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Personality and HypertensionEffect of
Hypertension Awareness
Aware hypertensive gt normotensive unaware
hypertensive, P lt 0.001
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Personality and HypertensionConclusion

• Do hypertensives have a different personality
  than those with normal blood pressure?
• No, because the unaware hypertensives did not
  differ from the normotensives.
• Why did the aware and unaware hypertensives
  differ?
• Possible explanations?

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Personality and HypertensionConclusion

• Awareness of hypertension status confounds
  assessment of the association between personality
  characteristics and hypertension.
• Due to hypertension labeling effect or
• Due to self-selection bias

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Longitudinal Design

• To gather data on the course of health or disease
  over time (e.g., progression of multiple
  sclerosis).
• Advantage is that you can see the time course of
  the disease or behaviour (e.g., smoking cessation
  over time).
• Disadvantage is it is costly and still subject to
  bias

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Experimental Designs

• Examines differences between experimentally
  manipulated groups (e.g., one group gets a
  certain drug and the other gets a placebo).
• Advantage is that you can determine causality.
• Disadvantage is cost and many variables cannot be
  experimentally manipulated (e.g., smoke exposure
  over time).

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Please answer anonymously these questions

• What is the main thing you learned from this
  lecture?
• What is the main question you have that wasnt
  answered?
• The things the instructor did best OR the best
  things about the lecture that were?
• The things the instructor did worst OR the worst
  things about the lecture that were?