The cognitive approach to health psychology has various belief models. Rosenstock’s model is based on health decisions that are guided by four main factors, discuss.
- Perceiving a personal threat of, or susceptibility to, developing a specific health problem. eg, do you believe smoking causes lung cancer.
- Perceiving the seriousness of the illness and the consequences of having it. e.g, how serious do you think lung cancer is?
- Believing that changing a particular behaviour will reduce the threat. e.g, will quitting smoking stop cancer?
- A comparison of the perceived cost of enacting the change and benefits expected from that change.
Changing health-related behaviours depends not only on a person’s beliefs but also on readiness to change, According to Prochaska the process of successful change occurs in five stages, discuss.
- Precontemplation: the person does not perceive a health-related problem and has no intention of changing in the foreseeable future.
- Contemplation: the person is aware of a health-related behaviour that should be changed and is seriously thinking about changing it.
- Preparation: the person has a strong intention to change and has made specific plans to do so.
- Action: the person is engaging successfully in behaviour change.
- Maintenance: The healthy behaviour has continued for at least six months, and the person is using newly learned skills to prevent relapse, or ‘backsliding’.
Describe stress
Stress is the internal process that occurs as people try to adjust to events and situations, especially those that they perceive to be beyond their coping capacity.
Common sources of stress (stressors) include
- Catastrophic events - these are sudden, unexpected, potentially life-threatening experiences or traumas, such as physical or sexual assault, military combat, natural disasters, terrorist attacks and accidents.
- Life changes and strains - these include divorce, illness in the family, difficulties at work and other circumstances that create demands to which people must adjust.
- Chronic problems – those that continue over a long period of time – include circumstances such as living in a high-crime neighbourhood or under the threat of terrorism, having a serious illness, being unable to earn a decent living, being the victim of discrimination, and even enduring years of academic pressure.
- Daily hassles - are irritations, pressures and annoyances that may not be significant stressors by themselves but whose cumulative effects can be significant.
Describe the relationship between stress and health
If our immune system is impaired by stressors, we are left more vulnerable to colds and other diseases.
The immune system can be strengthened or weakened by
a number of systems, including the endocrine system and the central and autonomic nervous systems.
Describe strategies for coping with stress
roblem-focused coping involves efforts to alter or eliminate a source of stress e.g. confronting, seeking social support and planned problem solving.
Emotion-focused techniques are aimed at regulating the negative emotional consequences of the stressor e.g. self-controlling, distancing, positive reappraisal, accepting responsibility and escape/avoidance (wishful thinking).
Describe cognitive coping strategies
Cognitive involves how we think about stressors.
Cognitive restructuring involves identifying upsetting thoughts and practising more constructive thoughts.
Describe emotional coping strategies.
Finding support is an emotional coping strategy.
Describe behavioural coping strategies
involve changing behaviour in ways that minimise the impact of stressors. Time management is one example. Time management can’t create more time, but it can help control catastrophising thoughts by providing reassurance that there is enough time for everything and a plan for handling all that you have to do.
Describe physical coping strategies
can be used to alter the undesirable physiological responses that occur before, during or after the appearance of stressors. The most common physical coping strategy is some form of drug use. Prescription medications are sometimes an appropriate coping aid, especially when stressors are severe and acute, such as the sudden death of one’s child.
