PSY 605 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Injury Prevention, Biopsychosocial Model, Biofeedback
30 May 2018
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• Four Goals of Health Psychology - has four goals originally defined by the Americans in
their health psych division
• To promote and maintain health - we study why people smoke cigarettes, do they
have higher or lower fat diets, which diets are associated with which prbs and health
psychologists can help
A lot of health psych data is implemented in school systems ex. Healthier food
choices weren't available in schools
• To prevent and treat illness: health psych research can prevent health prbs (Bp, heart
disease and stroke, help people with chronic medical conditions to adjust to their
condition, and to help people with rehabilitation ex. Hip fracture patient working abt
goig outside as that’s here the roke their hip) so help people preet illess or if
they have suffered from an illness then help them adjust to their condition and
improve their health
• To identify causes and diagnostic correlates of health, illness, and related dysfunction
- so we study things like what are the causes of the disease but we also study thing
slike risk factors and they are an imp variable in helath psych
• Risk factors
A risk factor is a variable that is associated with an increase tendency to have a
certain medical prb
A risk fator does’t eessaril ause the pr ut it relial assoiates ith haig a
prb
Ex. Levy did a study that found low income was a risk factor cancer. This research
did’t sho that lo ioe diretl auses aer ut that poor people ere ore
likely to get cancer than those not poor
• Predict medical prb and do so reliably
• E. Toao does’t diretl ause aer ut is a osistet reliale risk fator
• So risk fator does’t ea that it auses the pr ut it does ea that it's relial
associated with -ve health outcomes
• The last one is to just help analyze and..:
• To analyze and improve health care systems and health policy - we study things like how
characteristics of hospitals or other health care facilities or characteristics of health care
works would effect patients
• We study things related to health care policy; how hospitals function, how they can do so
better
• The system was geared out what physicians knew and they had more power and then we
foud out that as’t alas the est a to orgaize the health are sste - whats
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convenient for the provider isnt always what the patient needs and we do still have a
provider centered system (how much time do you get to spend with your physician?) the
health care system is organized so that the physician can attend to more patents - so
quantity over quality - make more money
• Health psychologists help us understand how health care behv is being administered by
providers and what can we do to improve that
• There are:
• Related Fields
• Psychosomatic Medicine
• Originally Freud’s idea that the pshe aused phsial sptos - this is where the
term came from but more modern physicians thought that it was an interplay b/w
the psycho and medical symptoms:
• However, many more modern physicians saw an interplay of psychological (psycho)
and medical (somatic: means of the body, soma means body) symptoms
• There's also Behavioural Medicine that
• Focuses more on clinical aspects of health but it's all about integrating behavioural
and medical sciences to promote physical health
• Integration of behavioural and medical sciences to promote physical health
• A lot people work in behv psych who work in other professions: nutritionists, social
workers, nurses, physicians, etc so they wont say im a helath psychologist because
they're not but they are working in that interplay b/w the behv and medical aspects
and the goal is to promote those physical/medical outcomes
• Clinical Aspects of Health Psychology
Some of the clinical aspects that we study are:
• Stress management to reduce medical problems ex. If someone has diabetes, help them to
manage their diabetes.
• Pain management
• Biofeedback
• There's also biofeed where you can help people to gain access to biological aspect for their
condition
For Biofeedback we can attach electrodes to peoples foreheads and measure the amount
of electrical activity - for many people if theyre stressed, they tense the part of their
forehead - help people manage headaches by helping them relax their tensed muscles -
used for stressed management
• Behavioural therapy to help:
Increase medically adaptive behaviours (e.g., exercise) or to
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