KHA359 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Institute For Operations Research And The Management Sciences, Schizophrenia, Asthma
30 Jun 2018
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Health Psychology week 10: Perception of Illness
What is illness:
- Subjective
- Something that causes some kind of change in body functions
- Typical signs: changes in bodily functions; sweating, toilet, sensation
(numbness, vision loss), body appearance (weight loss, limping)
- Some symptoms clearly visible, others are not
- People’s view of their illness is shaped by their personal experiences of illnees
oPrevious experience of illness
- Differentiating from disease:
oCassal
oIllness: what a patient might feel when they go to a doctor
oDisease: the doctor diagnosis
oNot all disease is associated with illness and vice versa
Eg. A hangover
- Three stages of responses to illness:
oPerceiving illness: attention to symptoms
Some might go unnoticed because we have limited resources
We cant attend to everything in the environment
So we use whatever free resources we have
Depends on:
The context: situational influences
oLikelihood of bodily disturbances depends on
situation
oResponse to them depends on demand
characteristics of situation
oDemand characteristics: sometimes its not
appropriate to show your feelings/express or
repress contain signs
Might not attend to symptoms if other distractions
Knowledge of symptoms: eg when health epidemics are
going around
Competition between multiple internal and external cues and
stimuli
Limited resources in processing stimuli and situational factors
could explain why some stimuli are attended to (symptoms)
Selective attention:
Bodily disturbances are more likely to be experienced
Primed or cued domains receive more attention
What are symptoms: sometimes we don’t actually know all of
the symptoms of a disease, we may misattribute symptoms to a
disease incorrectly
Eg. A heart attack
oOften misattributed; hard to detect whether it is
actually a heart attack
oHigh prevalence rates in Australia
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oWarning signs are not actually what is
commonly think
Eg. Strokes
oFace drooping
oArms
oSpeech
oTime is crucial for treating
Bodily signs that increase the likelihood of symptom
perception:
Whether we perceive symptoms as bad, depends on the
type of disturbances
Painful or disruptive
Novel: if its something that you’ve never experienced
before
oStudy by Jemmott
oPerceptions of common diseases and how they
are perceived to be novel
oFalse consensus effect: if actually have the
disease, you think that it is more common than it
really is, also think it is less serious than it is
oNo experience or don’t have disease: think it is
more serious and less prevalent than it actually
is
Persistent: the longer it hangs around
Pre-existing chronic disease: more likely to perceive
disturbance because you are already hyper-vigilant to
changes in function
Simplified symptom perception model:
Highlights a variety biological, psychological,
contextual factors that influence
Bottom up and top down processes: influence the extent
to which we perceive sensations
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find more resources at oneclass.com
- Attribute somatic sensations to psychological or somatic sources
oInterpret these and attribute them to actual symptoms
oPhysical and psychological symptoms influence one another
- Other factors that effect symptom perception:
oGender
Women more likely to perceive body signs and symptoms
Study:
Varies based on age
Males tend to peek around 65 age mark in terms of chronic pain
Women peeks around 80 years and remains high
oEmotions:
Negative affect: neuroticism
People who are anxious, depressed, worried more
More likely to experience negative symptoms than someone
who is happy
Study: also found that negative affect influenced symptoms by
way of worry
Directly effects symptoms but also motivates an
individual, through worry, to be more aware of
symptoms specific to illness
More likely to correctly attribute symptoms: worry
causes you to attend to the symptoms
oCognitions and coping style
Type A behaviour: somebody who is urgent in what they are
doing
Impatient
Hostile
Task focused
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find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Something that causes some kind of change in body functions. Typical signs: changes in bodily functions; sweating, toilet, sensation (numbness, vision loss), body appearance (weight loss, limping) People"s view of their illness is shaped by their personal experiences of illnees: previous experience of illness. Differentiating from disease: cassal, illness: what a patient might feel when they go to a doctor, disease: the doctor diagnosis, not all disease is associated with illness and vice versa. Three stages of responses to illness: perceiving illness: attention to symptoms. Some might go unnoticed because we have limited resources. We cant attend to everything in the environment. So we use whatever free resources we have. The context: situational influences: likelihood of bodily disturbances depends on situation, response to them depends on demand characteristics of situation, demand characteristics: sometimes its not appropriate to show your feelings/express or repress contain signs. Might not attend to symptoms if other distractions.
