Psychological factors influencing health behavior
The psychological factors influencing health behavior include lifestyle, personal characteristics and stress disorders. Lifestyle entails daily behaviors and duties of a person in occupations, activities, diet and fun. Lifestyle is the attributes or ways of inhabitants of a locality in place and time. According to (Ziglio, Currie and Rasmussen, 2004 p.p. 204-206), WHO estimates that 60% of similar factors to personal health and life quality are associated to lifestyle. In the world, thousands of people live in an unhealthy lifestyle which may result them to encounter diseases, disability conditions or even occurrence of death. Unhealthy lifestyle may also cause problems like joint and skeletal complications, metabolic related diseases, hypertension, cardio-vascular diseases and overweight. Researchers suggests that the relationship between health and behavior and lifestyle should be highly considered.
Nowadays, there is a wide change that have occurred in the people lives. Alcohol consuming, malnutrition, smoking, drug abuse, unhealthy diet and stress among others are all indicators of unhealthy lifestyle used as the main form of lifestyle. In day to day basis, the lives of people are encountered with new challenges. The emergence of new technologies within the fields of Information Technology such as the virtual communication networks and the internet usage for instance, causes a great challenge to our world that endangers the mental and the physical health of people. The misuse and the overuse of the technology becomes the major challenge to the world.
Secondly, health behavior can be influenced by personality characteristic of an individual. Personality traits are the major predictors of health results of an individual that impacts the health outcomes either directly or through a number of mechanisms (Chapman et al., pp. 636-642 2009). (Roberts et al., 2007 pp. 313–345) states that there are three mechanisms that are used to assess how personality characteristics affect the health outcomes which include; coping with illness, health behaviors and the pathogenesis which are the characteristics emanating from the susceptibility to illness, different reactions psychologically and the reactions to the outside stimuli. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
Stress levels have also effects on the health behavior of an individual. Stressors have a main effect on our sense of well-being, mood, behavior and health. In young people, response of acute stress in individuals who are healthy may be commutable and commonly do not cause a health weight. Nevertheless, if the stress threat is huge mostly in older or unhealthy people, cases oh health damage may be visible in the long-term outcomes of stressors. Psychological resources, learned coping patterns, biological individual vulnerability and the persistence, nature and number of stressors affects the relationship between the disease and the psychological stressors. Health professional uses psychosocial interventions to treat the stress related diseases which in turn affects the chronic illness’ course. According to (Shaw 2003, pp, 237–246), if individuals are exposed to extreme and intense stressors during their development years, they are subjected to long-running neurobiological outcomes and exposes them to increasing risk for mood disorders and anxiety, medical morbidity, dyscontrol aggressive problems and early death. More so, stress can result to other linkages of health such as accidents, increased smoking, substance use, sleep problems and eating complications.
Medical model and health behavior
Medical model in health is a model that submits that an illness has been detected and recognized by use of a structures process of examination, representation and differentiation in respect to accepted standards procedures for instance, tests, medical examination or describing set of symptoms. Medical model illustrates that, mental diseases should be treated as medical state commonly by use of prescribed medications. (Lisa, Medical Model Use in Psychology, 2019) states that the brain chemistry changes when mental illness is treated through medication. Mostly, the medication used may add or alter the chemicals that causes the problems with anxiety, mood, perception or any other issue. In the medical model school of thought, it is believed that mental illness is the product of psychological factors. Medical model treats mental illness as a physical illness by use of medication the same way a doctor can treat a broken arm or leg. This model is widely used by the psychiatrists rather than psychologists. Nevertheless, supporters of this model therefore, view symptoms to be outside signs of the internal physical disorder. They believe that the true cause of the illness can eventually be found out and proper administration of treatment be carried out if the symptoms can be grouped together and be classified as a syndrome (Saul, The Medical Model, 2018).
Other psychological models in health behavior
- Health belief model
This model tries to explain and foresee behaviors inn health by concentrating on individuals’ attitude and beliefs. The model suggests that individuals are mainly likely to take preventative steps if they discern that the threat of risk in health is serious, if they are individually vulnerable and if the cost of engaging in it is few than benefits. The main feature of this model is that change in behavior interventions are more successful if an individual’s main view about benefits, barriers, self-efficacy and vulnerability are addressed. These interventions include education, personalized advice and risk prediction and calculation.
- Cycle model
Also known as Stages of Change Model, illustrates the readiness of an individuals to change their behaviors. Unlike the health belief model which tries to explain and foresee behaviors inn health by concentrating on individuals’ attitude and beliefs, this model describes how the behavioral change occurs in steps or stages which include the following:
- Pre-contemplation: This step explains that there is no need to take an action if a change occur in an individual’s behavior.
- Contemplation: In this stage, if a change occurs, there is intentions to take action but the action is planned to be taken in future.
- Preparation: This stage explains the need to take an action and some steps are taken.
- Action: In this stage of change, the behavior has already been changed in a short time period.
- Maintenance: This stage of change shows that the changes in the behavior and continuous maintenance of this change for a long period of time.
- Termination: It is the last stage of change which shows that there is no need to go back to prior negative behaviors.
- Social learning model
Developed by an American psychologist, Albert Bandura, social learning model acts as a linkage that connects the cognitive and behaviorist perspective by supporting the importance of the behaviorist belief in supplementing on behavior maintenance as observed in the cycle model while recognizing the cognition influences on learning from one another. This model acknowledges the major significance of thoughts or cognition about perceptions rather than basic spontaneous responses to reactions of punishment or reinforcement as the foundation for the behavior.
Psychological Principles that Manage Health Concerns
Psychology is referred to as the science of mental processes and behavior that stresses on knowledge and training about facets such as emotions, motivations, attitudes and social behavior, lifespan development, leaning, personality and cognition. It attempts to comprehend how behavioral, social and biological factors affect health and diseases. Psychology is a behavioral discipline in health and is considered to be the key in the biospsychosocial practice. It plays an important role in comprehending the notion of health and illness. The role of clinical psychologists as providers of health for instance, is wide and has a varying areas of giving care and a diverse subspecialties. The main functions of psychologists is to assess the disease, diagnose it and administer treatment to the psychological problems and the dysfunctions of behavior that comes from or that are related to the mental and physical health. Psychologists are also part and parcel in the healthy behavior promotion, disease prevention and patient‘s life quality improvement. They are governed by code of conduct and the ethical principles (Saeed, The Role of Psychologists in Health Care Deliver, 2005).
References
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Lisa Fritscher 2019, Medical Model Use in Psychology, retrieved from
https://www.verywellmind.com/medical-model-2671617
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