NRSG138 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Social Class, Social Exclusion, Natural Disaster
Infancy - Impacts on future development
● Intellectual development begins in infancy when an infant is exposed to stimuli
● Emotional development is closely linked to intellectual development during the
lifespan - there is a crucial need for young children to experience love and belonging
● Stable and close relationships in young children lead to confidence and a feeling of
worth
Childhood-Adolescence - Impacts on future development
● Intellectual development continues in childhood and adolescence with
○ Pursuit of personal interests
○ Formal education
○ Leisure activities
○ Life experiences
○ Connectedness to adults
Adulthood - Impacts on future development
● Relationships - family and intimate partners
● Working life - type, financial remuneration
● Career - satisfaction and success
● Aging - normal and pathological
● Health - normal or changed
● Friendships - social, acquaintances, and colleagues
● Leisure activities
Why do we need to understand psychological variables in health?
To be a holistic nurse, we need to be able to view our patients as holistic individuals. This
means we are required to assess our patients physical state with objective vital signs
measurements and include psychosocial variables that can impact on the patients overall
health
What factors can impact on psychological health
● Biological factors
● Environmental factors
● Risk factors
● Protective factors
● Precipitating factors
● Triggering factors
● Resilience
● Coping strategies
Risk factors
Attributes that exist before a stressful situation or crisis
● Social surroundings
● Childhood dysfunction - abuse, neglect, poverty, illness
● Current financial strain
● Recent negative life event
● Divorce or death of a significant other or close friend or family member
● Declining physical health
find more resources at oneclass.com
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● Negative cognitive style
● Neuroticism
● Anxiety
● Estrangement from family/partner/friends/ work satisfaction
Protective factors
Attributes that exist before a stressful event or crisis
● Self esteem - how one views oneself and connects to others
● Stress resistant personality - belief that change is part of life
● Resourcefulness - how one adapts
● Personality traits - seeing adversity as opportunity for growth
● Social - a good network of friends and colleagues
● Prepares individuals well to cope with adverse events
● Cognitive appraisal - how the event will impact on the individual
● Hardiness - ability to resist illness; patterns of attitudes and actions
● Optimism - hope - believing that one can cope with events
Models of resilience
● Compensatory model
● The challenge model
● The protective factor of immunity versus vulnerability model
Stress-Diathesis Model
● Stress is a universal human experience
● The Diathesis model describes how genetic or biological factors interact with an
individual’s environmental stress which result in disorder or changed conditions of
health
● The theory purports that an individual’s biological vulnerabilities or predispositions, to
particular psychological or physical disorders can be triggered by stressful life events
● These stressful events can lead to a person's psychological health disorder being
triggered depending on their biological vulnerability and level of resilience
● For example:
○ When an individual has a high resilience or low biological vulnerability,
stressful events are unlikely to trigger symptoms of a disorder that the
individual has a biologically vulnerability or is predispositioned to
● Due to the resilience of the individual and the low biological vulnerability - the event
would have to be extremely stressful to trigger symptoms of the disease that the
individual is predispositioned to
● Unless the stress levels of the individual reach critical levels, the individual will
function normally and the biological vulnerability will not manifest itself as symptoms
of the disease
● And on the opposite side of this, the individual that has low resistance and a high
biological vulnerability to a disorder would only need require a small amount of stress
to trigger a predisposed or biological vulnerability disorder that is manifested each
and every time the individual is stressed
Biological Factors - Diathesis Stress Model
● Individual genetic make up
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Intellectual development begins in infancy when an infant is exposed to stimuli. Emotional development is closely linked to intellectual development during the lifespan - there is a crucial need for young children to experience love and belonging. Stable and close relationships in young children lead to confidence and a feeling of worth. Intellectual development continues in childhood and adolescence with. To be a holistic nurse, we need to be able to view our patients as holistic individuals. This means we are required to assess our patients physical state with objective vital signs measurements and include psychosocial variables that can impact on the patients overall health. Attributes that exist before a stressful situation or crisis. Childhood dysfunction - abuse, neglect, poverty, illness. Divorce or death of a significant other or close friend or family member. Attributes that exist before a stressful event or crisis. Self esteem - how one views oneself and connects to others.
