Health Psychology Essay

easyness psychology concerns itself with understanding style, biology and social context and their influences on illness and health. Health psychologists work with professionals in clinical aras and mistakablely carry research as well as teach in universities. Health psychology aims at changing the health behavior of singles to sponsor them admit optimum health and assist endurings in adhering to treatment regimens. bail bond to checkup exam regimens and shorter hospitalizations argon indicators of effective health serve.Health psychologists use cognitive behavior therapy and analysis of applied behavior to achieve this. Discussion The occupation key out is composed of activities that argon aimed at change the access of services to long-sufferings and to a fault to improve the overall health occupy of forbearings. In assignment of duties to the various health professionals some health psychologists ordain receive to a great extent than one duty on the list. Th is is because of some of the duties which are closely related make it more than reasonable for these duties to be carried out by one person.The list only has very numerous activities which if work load is considered makes it necessary to bring on a fifth job title. The fifth job title would be a communication skills counselor. The duties pass on because be allocated as follows, the substance twist counselor provide be responsible for coordinating the use of recuperation programs and structured programs for substance. He/she forget be working in attendant with the social actor. The rationale behindhand this assignment is that the substance cry out direction is the person well-nigh allot for relations with substance abusers in assisting them to bring in rehabilitated.The nature of substance abuse is such that it has social and psychological components to it so the collaboration between the substance abuse counselling and the social worker is necessary. The longan imous load in substance abuse programs is high because of the intense nature of behavioural qualifying programs that are used, hence the substance abuse guidance leave only fork out this duty assigned to them. The in unhurried-only psychologist pass on be assigned to the duty of providing treatment for chronic pain. The psychologist go out be performing this duty only.This ordain be because of the large number of long-sufferings who have chronic pain. Managing these patients adequately means that the psychologist whitethorn not have overflowing time to attend to other duties. The tike psychologist has two duties assigned to them. These are providing psychological readiness methods for clawren prior to medical social occasions and collaboration with topical anesthetic schools. These are two duties which are closely related. By being involved with local anesthetic schools the psychologist volitioning already be familiar to the electric razorren making it easier fo r them to get children to assist when in the hospital.The big(p) psychologist will have the duty of providing psychological preparation methods for the adults prior to medical procedures and surgery. The workload for this psychologist is promiseed to be high since most of the patients are adults, hence the adult psychologist will only have this duty. The fifth job is that of communications guidance, who will be carrying out duties of utilizing various methods to relieve registration and coping skills amongst the patients. This psychologist will also have the role of examine nidus disorders and providing aid in stress relief interventions.The rationale behind this assignment is that the two duties are also closely related. The effect of scummy adjustment to a condition and inability is much stress (Broome, Llewelyn and Llewelyn, 1994). sometimes the relationship is vice versa, with high stress levels causing poor adjustment to ones condition (Lyons and Chamberlain, 2006 ). The substance abuse counsellor will contribute to improved patient healthcare by provision of services geared towards behavior change that will enable the patient to be completely rehabilitated.The HBM (Health Behaviour Model) proposes that behavior change occurs when an individual perceives that the benefits of behavior change outweigh the costs or barriers that are associated with the behavior. (Friedman and Silver, ). The substance abuse counsellor will use such a model to predict the opening night of behavior change for the substance abuser. The usefulness of the HBM has been seen in its predictive look upon of whether individuals will adopt behavior such as safe-sex practices, breast introspection and exercise (Friedman and Silver, ).The substance abuse counsellor will use cognitive behavioral therapy to educate substance abusers about the need to steer slang of drugs. Those with alcohol and other drug addiction problems will be helped to cite problems and behaviors that ar e related to their substance abuse. This will often be do in a group setting and occasionally on an individual basis (Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2008). Group settings are used mainly because many hoi polloi feel wind by the fact that they are not alone in the addiction problem.Other activities that the substance counsellor will be involved in include assisting family members to cope with the addictions of their spouses, children or siblings. Since health psychology places emphasis on prevention of illness,the substance counsellor will have the responsibility of initiating, contrivening and conducting programs which are aimed at the prevention of addictions. This will help in the achievement of overall better health since it is often easier to prevent a condition rather than to cure it. The rehabilitation do for drug addicts has been known to be a difficult with many of them falling off the wagon.Thus a lot of time and patience is required, making prevention the better opti on. The emphasis on prevention is aimed at cut the number of patients who will need to use substance abuse programs and also at reducing the rate of relapse. This contributes to decreased stay at the hospital. The child psychologist has a role of helping children to respond to the physician in a positive and cooperative manner at the time when a procedure is being make. This will involves the use of methods that allay the fears and anxieties of the child, such as providing distractions.The counsellor will also explain to a child who is old replete to understand the nature of the procedure they will undergo and what to expect in language that they faecal matter understand. The child counsellor will also have the responsibility of identifying cases of child abuse and other problems in the family that whitethorn block up proper child dilatement (Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2006). In addition, it is the role of the child psychologist to educate the parent(s) or the guardian of the child on the developmental milestones of the child and to encourage parents to bring their children to hospital if any of these milestones are missed.At the local school, the child psychologist will continue to observe children for any behavioral, social and in the flesh(predicate) problems. This will contribute to improvement in child health as it will result in earliest detection of problems and whence early centering and possibly shorter stays in hospital. The adult psychologist will be preparing adults psychologically for medication by telling the adult patient what to expect. forrader surgery, the adult psychologist will visit the adult patient and discover what fears they whitethorn have.The adult psychologist can allay this by explaining the changes that the patient may expect following surgery or after a medical procedure. The adult psychologist can also communicate the patients worries and fears to the physician, surgeon and other health professionals directly invo lved in patient care. This will check into that the medical professionals allay these fears and are conscious of them as they tell apart care of the patient. This contributes to better healthcare because a less anxious patient is more cooperative and the patient is more likely to have greater fond regard to their medication regimen.Management of chronic pain is a role which will include activities like administration of the McGill Pain Questionnaire to patients. This tool assists in interpretation and measurement of pain (Marks, Murray, Evans et al, 2005). It provides a set of words describing pain from which the patient can choose from. These will assist the doc to determine the earnestness and depth of the pain that the patient feels. The McGill Pain Questionnaire makes diagnosis of pain easier and depending on the type diagnosed the appropriate medication can be prescribed, reducing the patients hospital stay.Another activity that the inpatient only psychologist will be inv olved in is confirming that a patient is safely using patient administered analgesia. This information can be elicited through with(predicate) conversations with the patient which will reveal their use of the analgesics that they have. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)and biofeedback are other techniques of treating pain amongst inpatients. CBT involves the use of distraction and relaxation techniques (Scott and Briere, 2006). The use of CBT where the patient is advised to note pain relieving and pain aggravating factors also help in the management of pain.These are useful in managing pain and when the inpatient psychologist has taught these successfully to the patient then it becomes easier for the patient to handle the pain and become to their medication. The overall effect of these is a shortened hospital stay. The communications counsellor will have a role in educating physicians on the enormousness of maintaining patient-centered consultations. These consultations as oppose d to doctor-centered consultations make the patient to feel as though they are part of the treatment process.The doctor- centered consultation is perhaps favourite(a) by the elderly but is disliked by most people due to the sense of ignorance that it searchs to inspire. A patient-centered consultation focusses on the needs of the patients and allows the doctor to listen to the patient, involve the patient and finally make a diagnosis and choose treatment. Health psychologists believe that treatment that is arrived at like this has a higher chance of being adhered to (Marks et al, 2005). The communications counsellor will in that respectfore make this known to the medical professionals to enhance adherence to medication regimens.This is burning(prenominal) as often the way a patient is handled by the medical professionals influences their adjustment to a condition they have especially when the condition is chronic. Adherence to medication is an indication that the patient is well adjusted and is coping well. virtually patients who have suffered traumatic conditions or who have chronic conditions are predisposed to management of stress disorders. Development of a stress disorder in addition to their chronic condition makes their health even worse and increases their finis of stay in hospital.The communications psychologist will identify these patients and plan for and put on interventions that will help to relieve their stress. Some of these interventions include CBT, which can be done individually or in a group. The communications psychologist may also introduce biofeedback. Biofeedback involves the measurement of the functions of a subject such as heart rate, blood pressure, skin temperature and muscle tension as well as sweat gland activity (Scott and Briere, 2006 ). Often when a patient stress levels are increased these parameters tend to increase.When measured and an increase is found, the patients awareness is raised and the patient then can consci ously begin to control the unconscious physiological activities. Adherence to this practice can help patients avoid thoughts and feelings which increase their stress. The communication psychologist will also encourage the patients to verbalize their feelings of anxiety and stress and what they think are the sources of the stress. She/he will then explore with them the things that they can engage in to help take away their stress. These include physical activities, board games, conversations with other patients.Some stress issues may be related to the family especially where a mother is sick. She may worry about the care of her household and children. To assist this mother, the communications psychologist may need to help the mother work out a plan for care of her household with other family members. Once the stressors have been identified and done away with the patient is more likely to heal faster and be more committed to their treatment regime. The role of the communications psych ologist is very significant in detecting patients who may go into depression as a result of stress associated with their conditions. ConclusionSome of the jobs of the health psychologists may seem to overlap. These include the jobs of the inpatient psychologist and the communications psychologist since both seem to be dealing with chronically ill patients. They also seem to have a similar objective in that they want to ensure that the patient adheres to their treatment regimen. in that location are similarities between both jobs, but the focus of the inpatient psychologist is the patient who requires pain management. Overlap is reduced by the fact that should the patient develop stress as a result of poor pain management then they can be referred to the communication psychologist.The communication psychologist will then go on to identify the stressor and put in place appropriate interventions. The overlap is not an entirely bad thing as it will result in some of the workload being shared among the psychologists since there is likelihood of patients being more in one psychologists speciality. The health psychologists described above will all be working towards improving the care of their patients. Most of the interventions that they will put in place will lead to either decreased hospital stay or greater adherence to medication. This effectively results in improved health among the patients.