Discuss the biopsychosocial (biological/genetic, psychological, social) factors that influence the patient’s experience with the chronic condition chosen.
QUESTION
Discuss the biopsychosocial (biological/genetic, psychological, social) factors that influence the patient’s experience with the chronic condition chosen.
Discuss the biopsychosocial (biological/genetic, psychological, social) factors that influence the patient’s experience with the chronic condition chosen.
ANSWER
The biomedical model’s context
Before we get into the biopsychosocial model, you should understand something called the biomedical model of mental health. We won’t go into great detail here, but let’s go over the essentials.
Biomedical modeling
Previously, psychiatrists, who are medical doctors, saw people with mental health issues as being ill in the same way that someone could be physically ill. They saw conditions caused by brain disturbances as being treatable with drugs, surgery, or other physical means. They reasoned that if there was something physically wrong with your brain, it needed to be fixed physically.
George Engel challenged the biomedical approach in 1977 because it failed to account for the numerous other factors that can influence mental health and health in general. Factors such as upbringing, beliefs, coping skills, trauma, and relationships were not considered. Engel just didn’t feel right about it. As a result, he proposed a new way of thinking about mental health that included both social and psychological determinants of health, as well as a person’s biology. The biopsychosocial model was used in this case.
The biopsychosocial theory
Engel’s biospychosocial model became extremely influential. Most medical professionals now believe that the biopsychosocial model encompasses three major areas that influence mental health:
Biological (e.g. genetics, brain chemistry and brain damage)
Social (e.g. life traumas and stresses, early life experiences and family relationships)
Psychological (e.g. how we interpret events as signifying something negative about ourselves)
biopsychosocial-model
These factors interact in complex ways to produce the end result of a person’s overall mental health. The diagram above is a simplified summary of how the factors interact. In reality, it is a complex web with numerous connections between different areas. As time passes, new events enter the model and have an impact on existing factors. It is in flux rather than fixed.
Mental health problems are the complex result of a number of factors.
According to the biopsychosocial model, mental health is the result of many forces acting on the individual at different times. These forces may be both positive and negative. When the negatives outweigh the positives, a person may develop a mental illness.
Mental illness is most likely caused by a combination of negative circumstances that have accumulated over time. There may be one thing that pushes a person over the edge, but this is unlikely to be the only cause of a disorder.
Negative factors accumulate.
Assume you’ve had a bad day at work. You had a stressful morning at home, dealt with more client problems than usual, and just got out of an exhausting meeting you had forgotten about. You return to your desk and promptly spill your coffee.
This could bring you to tears, erupt into a rage, or make you hate your job. A coworker watching this scene might think you’re overly emotional because you knocked your drink over. The real issue, however, was not knocking your drink over. All of the previous events combined to create a situation in which when you did knock your drink over, it was too much.
This is just one example. But we’ve probably all been there. Every now and then, there are days when nothing seems to go right, and it’s exasperating. But the point is that we can all see how events can accumulate to the point where something minor can tip us over the edge.
Similarly, biological, psychological, and social factors can accumulate over a person’s lifetime to cause mental illness.
It is now well established, for example, that schizophrenia has a genetic component. However, certain traumatic or stressful life events, such as a pattern of poor and chaotic family relationships as a child, can trigger the condition. The condition was caused by a combination of factors.
Depression can be caused by a combination of life events (such as emotional abuse as a child or traumas such as divorce in adulthood) and a person’s habitual ways of judging themselves and their experiences. Again, the problem was not caused by a single factor.
Everyone is affected by the biopsychosocial model.
The biopsychosocial model is excellent for understanding how mental health conditions develop. However, we should not limit its application to people who are mentally ill. It applies to all of us. Its three areas can be used as positive forces to improve our mental health.
Your mental health, mine, your friends’, family’s, and colleagues’ is influenced by a combination of biological, psychological, and social factors. This is critical to comprehend. It implies that ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ people are not distinct.
The mind of someone suffering from a mental illness is not dissimilar to yours. There is simply a different set of factors that have come together to create a state in which the person is mentally ill.
We all have the potential to be mentally well or mentally unwell, just like the mental health continuum. We cannot regard people suffering from mental illnesses as fundamentally different. This is an excellent way to address the stigma associated with mental health issues.
In the workplace, the biopsychosocial model
Another advantage of the biopsychosocial model. It demonstrates the potential to positively influence a person’s mental health in the workplace, as well as being able to explain mental health in terms other than the purely biomedical.
You should use the biopsychosocial model as a manager to help you find ways to positively influence your team.
You could, for example, influence biological factors by developing lunchtime exercise habits. Alternatively, you could promote healthy eating initiatives. In this way, you can have a positive impact on someone else’s mental health.
You should also consider how you can improve the social and psychological aspects of your job. Some things will be beyond your control, but you can make some minor adjustments. What kind of training can be provided to help people become more resilient? Is it possible to use praise to boost self-esteem? What can you do to help colleagues form strong bonds?
Positives outnumber negatives.
Remember that positive factors, like negative factors, add up. A positive day, such as going for a walk with colleagues over lunch or feeling good because you ate something healthy, may mean that when you do knock that cup of coffee over, you are able to see it for what it truly is. It was an inconvenient accident, but nothing more.
If we apply this logic to our entire lives, we can see that in order to be more mentally healthy and resilient, we must focus on increasing the positive factors in our lives.
What if you’re too preoccupied to do all of this?
There’s no getting around the fact that working through the biopsychosocial model and identifying where changes can be made can be difficult and time-consuming. However, it will be time well spent. The long-term advantages far outweigh the short-term costs. Check out this article to find out why.
The biopsychosocial model’s conclusions
Mental health disorders have a wide range of causes. Biological factors do play a role, but they are not the only ones. Social and psychological factors are also important.
Each of us is unique. Some people are more likely than others to develop a mental health problem, but we can all improve our mental health by viewing the biopsychosocial model as three positive forces for mental health.
Focusing on the biopsychosocial model’s psychological aspects can help people gain control of their thoughts and improve their mental health.
Work is a social activity that can have an impact on a person’s mental health, either positively or negatively.