What is health psychology?

Scientists and public health professionals estimate that 70% of diseases are preventable. Health psychology plays an important role in understanding how behavior, cognition, and emotions influence physical and mental health.

Health psychology is the study of psychological and behavioral processes in health, illness, and health care. This discipline is dedicated to understanding how psychological, behavioral, and cultural factors influence physical health and disease. Psychological factors can directly affect health.

For example, chronic environmental stressors can cumulatively affect the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, compromising health. Behavioral factors also affect a person's health.

For example, certain behaviors may damage or enhance health over time. Health psychologists take a biopsychosocial approach.

In other words, health psychologists believe that health is the product not only of biological processes but also of psychological, behavioral, and social processes.

By understanding the psychological factors that influence health and applying this knowledge constructively, health psychologists can improve health by working directly with individual patients or indirectly in large-scale public health programs.

Additionally, health psychologists can help train other healthcare professionals in applying the knowledge generated by the discipline when treating patients. Health psychologists work in a variety of settings: in hospitals and clinics with other medical professionals, in public health departments working on large-scale behavior change and health promotion programs, and in teaching and research at universities and medical schools.

Although its early origins can be traced to the field of clinical psychology, over time four distinct departments within health psychology and a related field, occupational health psychology (OHP), have developed. These four departments include

• clinical health psychology
• public health psychology
• community health psychology
• critical health psychology

Professional organizations in the field of health psychology include

• American Psychological Association (APA) Chapter 38
• British Psychological Society (BPS) Health Psychology Branch
• european society for health psychology
• Australian Psychological Society Association of Health Psychologists Schools (APS)

Advanced certification as a clinical health psychologist in the United States is offered through the American Board of Professional Psychology.

Overview

Recent advances in research in psychology, medicine, and physiology have led to new ways of thinking about health and disease. This conceptualization, known as the biopsychosocial model, views health and illness as the product of a combination of factors, including

• biological characteristics (e.g. genetic predisposition),
• Behavioral factors (e.g. lifestyle, stress, health beliefs)
• Social conditions (e.g., cultural influences, family relationships, social support)

Psychologists who work to understand how biological, behavioral, and social factors influence health and disease are called health psychologists. Health psychologists use their knowledge of psychology and health to promote overall health and understand physical illness.

They are specially trained to help people deal with the psychological and emotional aspects of health and illness. Health psychologists work with many different health care professionals to conduct research and provide clinical assessment and treatment services. Many health psychologists focus on preventive research and interventions designed to promote healthier lifestyles and try to find ways to encourage people to improve their health. For example, they can help people lose weight or quit smoking.

Health psychologists also use their skills to try to improve the health care system. For example, they might advise doctors on how to better communicate with patients. Health psychologists work in many different settings, including the NHS, private practice, universities, communities, schools and organizations.

While many health psychologists provide clinical services as part of their role, others hold non-clinical roles, primarily involving teaching and research.

Leading journals include

• "Health Psychology",
• Journal of Health Psychology,
• British Journal of Health Psychology
• "Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being"

Health psychologists can work with people on a one-on-one basis, in groups, with families or on a larger basis.

Health psychology, like other areas of applied psychology, is both a theoretical and applied field.

Health psychologists use a variety of research methods. These methods include

• controlled randomized experiment
• Quasi-experiment
• longitudinal study
• time series design
• cross-sectional study
• case control study
• qualitative research
• action research

Health psychologists study a wide range of health phenomena, including cardiovascular disease, smoking habits, the relationship between religious beliefs and health, alcohol use, social support, living conditions, emotional states, social class, and more. Some health psychologists treat individuals with sleep problems, headaches, alcohol abuse problems, and more. Other health psychologists work to empower community members by helping them take control of their own health and improve the quality of life for the entire community.

health psychology examples

Health psychology studies the relationship between mind and body in health and disease. Examples of how health psychology can help include providing interventions when someone feels severely anxious and develops headaches or stomach problems.

A health psychologist will look at the causes of headaches or stomach problems. Is anxiety causing these problems, or is the individual suffering from ongoing stomach ailments and headaches? Perhaps patients worry that headaches and stomach problems are symptoms of a more serious problem.

Other examples include helping you understand psychological stress and helping you avoid stress eating. A health psychologist may also help you consider exercise to reduce stress.

Health psychology can help intervene in issues such as addiction or a sedentary lifestyle.

Another example includes studying why some people follow medical advice and others do not.

Clinical Health Psychology (ClHP)

ClHP is the application of scientific knowledge derived from the field of health psychology to solve clinical problems that may arise across the spectrum of health care. ClHP is one of the professional practice areas for clinical and health psychologists. It is also a major contributor to the fields of prevention-focused behavioral health and treatment-oriented behavioral medicine. Clinical practice includes education, behavior change techniques, and psychotherapy. In some countries, clinical health psychologists can become medical psychologists with additional training, thereby gaining prescribing privileges.

Public Health Psychology (PHP)

PHP is crowd-oriented. A major goal of PHP is to investigate potential causal relationships between population-level psychosocial factors and health. Public health psychologists present research to educators, policymakers, and health care providers to promote better public health. PHP is relevant to other public health disciplines, including epidemiology, nutrition, genetics, and biostatistics. Some PHP interventions target high-risk groups (eg, single pregnant women with low education, smokers) rather than the entire population (eg, all pregnant women).

Community Health Psychology (CoHP)

CoHP investigates community factors that contribute to the health and well-being of community residents. CoHP also develops community-level interventions designed to combat disease and promote physical and mental health. Communities often serve as the level of analysis and are often sought as partners in health-related interventions.

Critical Health Psychology (CrHP)

CrHP focuses on the distribution of power and the impact of power differentials on health experiences and behaviors, health care systems, and health policy. CrHP prioritizes social justice and the universal right to health for people of all races, genders, ages and socioeconomic statuses. A major issue is health inequalities. Critical health psychologists are agents of change, not just analysts or cataloguers. The leading organization in this field is the International Society for Critical Health Psychology.

Occupational Health Psychology

Pickren and Degni and Sanderson [18] observed that in Europe and North America, occupational health psychology (OHP) emerged as a profession with its own organization. The authors note that OHP owes its emergence, in part, to health psychology as well as other disciplines (e.g., I/O psychology, occupational medicine). Sanderson highlighted examples where OHP aligns with health psychology, including Adkins' research. Adkins documents the application of behavioral principles in complex organizations to improve working conditions, reduce job stress, and improve worker health.

Target

What is the role of health psychology?

The role of health psychology is to bridge the gap between psychology and health. Health psychologists offer their expertise to educate patients and promote overall well-being.

Health psychology is an important part of managing the psychological and emotional impact of health and illness on your life. Health psychologists are also vital in supporting people with chronic illness or cancer. These psychologists are trained to promote healthy lifestyles and help people improve their quality of life.

Health psychologists also play an important role in improving the health care system and coaching doctors to communicate better with patients. By teaching doctors how to talk to patients and explain diagnoses and treatments, health psychologists can help reduce patients' confusion or anxiety.

Understand behavioral and situational factors

Health psychologists conduct research to identify behaviors and experiences that promote health, cause disease, and affect the effectiveness of health care. They also suggest ways to improve health care policy. Health psychologists work to develop ways to reduce smoking and improve daily nutrition to promote health and prevent disease. They also looked at associations between diseases and personal characteristics. For example, health psychology has found links between personality traits such as sensation-seeking, impulsivity, hostility/anger, emotional instability and depression and high-risk driving.

Health psychology also focuses on contextual factors, including economic, cultural, community, social, and lifestyle factors that influence health. Physical addiction can hinder quitting smoking. Some studies suggest that tempting advertising can also lead to psychological dependence on tobacco, although other studies have found no relationship between media exposure and teen smoking. OHP research shows that people in jobs with less decision-making freedom and higher psychological burden are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Other studies have revealed a link between unemployment and increased blood pressure. Epidemiological studies have demonstrated a relationship between social class and cardiovascular disease.

Health psychologists also work to change health behaviors with the dual goals of helping people stay healthy and helping patients adhere to disease treatment regimens. To do this, health psychologists use cognitive behavioral therapy and applied behavior analysis.

prevent disease

As mentioned above, health psychologists promote health through behavior change; however, they also try to prevent disease through other means. Health psychologists try to help people live healthy lives by developing and running programs that help people make changes in their lives, such as quitting smoking, reducing alcohol consumption, eating healthier, and exercising regularly.

Campaigns based on health psychology target tobacco use. Those least able to afford tobacco products consume the most. Tobacco provides individuals with a means of controlling aversive emotional states that accompany the daily experiences of stress that characterize the lives of poor and disadvantaged groups. Practitioners emphasize education and effective communication as part of disease prevention because many people do not recognize or minimize disease risks that exist in their lives. Additionally, many people are often unable to apply their knowledge of health practices due to daily pressures and pressures. A common example of population-based attempts to motivate the smoking public to reduce their dependence on cigarettes are anti-smoking campaigns.

Health psychologists help promote health and well-being through disease prevention. Some diseases can be treated more effectively if caught early. Health psychologists have been working to understand why some people do not seek early screening or immunization and use this knowledge to develop ways to encourage early health screening for conditions such as cancer and heart disease. Health psychologists are also looking for ways to help people avoid risky behaviors and encourage health-promoting behaviors.

Health psychologists also work to educate health professionals, including doctors and nurses, to communicate effectively with patients and overcome barriers to understanding, remembering, and implementing effective strategies to reduce exposure to risk factors and make behavioral changes that promote health. .

OHP also provides evidence that workplace stress reduction interventions may be effective.

Illness, disability and long-term conditions

Health psychologists study how illness affects an individual's mental health. People who are seriously ill or injured face many different real-world stressors. These stressors include problems paying medical and other bills, problems getting appropriate care when returning home from the hospital, barriers to caring for dependents, experiences that compromise one's sense of self-reliance, acquiring a new and unwelcome patient status, etc. . These stressors can lead to depression, lowered self-esteem, and more.

Health psychologists can help people with long-term conditions improve or maintain their quality of life, self-manage their condition, and adjust to living with illness, disability or long-term illness.

Health psychology is also concerned with improving the lives of terminally ill patients. When hope for recovery is slim, health psychologist therapists can work within a multidisciplinary palliative care team to improve a patient's quality of life by helping them regain at least some of their mental health. Health psychologists are also concerned with providing therapeutic services to bereaved families.

critical analysis of health policy

Critical health psychologists explore how health policy affects inequality, inequality, and social injustice. These avenues of research extend the scope of health psychology beyond the level of individual health to the study of the social and economic determinants of health within and between regions and countries. The individualism of mainstream health psychology has been criticized and deconstructed by critical health psychologists using qualitative methods that zero in on the experience of health.

research

Like psychologists in other major psychological disciplines, health psychologists possess advanced knowledge of research methods. Health psychologists use this knowledge to conduct research on a variety of issues.

Teaching and communication

Health psychologists may also be responsible for training other health professionals on how to deliver interventions to help promote healthy eating, smoking cessation, weight loss, etc. Health psychologists also train other health professionals in communication skills, such as how to report bad news or support changes in behavior with the aim of improving treatment compliance.

What does a health psychologist do?

Health psychologists work primarily in clinical settings. They conduct clinical interviews and behavioral assessments. They can work with individuals or groups.

Research conducted by health psychologists can help evaluate health care costs. This helps healthcare decision-makers and policymakers. Some health psychologists study the causes of health problems and how to prevent them. They also looked at why some people don't get care when they need it.
Such studies help doctors understand their patients and help patients come to terms with their diagnosis. Health psychologists can also help patients adhere to treatment plans and help them fully recover.

Open communication and understanding patients' motivations and behaviors help health psychologists understand and treat people.

Health psychologists can also work with the larger care team, and they can give diagnoses and recommended treatment plans to help address larger medical issues. This kind of collaboration is important for the entire field of medicine.

The role of the health psychologist

Here are some examples of the types of roles health psychologists hold in applied settings such as the NHS and private practice in the UK.

• Consultant Health Psychologist: The Consultant Health Psychologist will provide leadership in health psychology within public health, including managing tobacco control and smoking cessation services, and provide professional leadership in the management of health trainers.
• Chief Health Psychologist: For example, a Chief Health Psychologist could lead the health psychology service at one of the UK's leading heart and lung hospitals, delivering clinical services to patients and providing advice to all members of the multidisciplinary team.
• Health Psychologist: An example of a health psychologist's role is to provide health psychology input to a weight management center. Conduct psychological assessments of treatment, develop and implement tailored weight management plans, and provide advice on ways to improve compliance with health advice and medical treatment.
• Research psychologist: Research health psychologists conduct health psychology research, for example, exploring the psychological impact of receiving a dementia diagnosis, or evaluating ways to provide psychological support to burns victims. Research can also be in the field of health promotion, for example investigating the determinants of healthy eating or physical activity or understanding why people abuse substances.
• Health Psychologist in Training/Assistant Health Psychologist in Training: As an Assistant/Assistant Health Psychologist in Training you will gain experience in assessing patients, delivering psychological interventions to change health behaviours, and conducting research while being trained by a qualified health psychologist supervision.

train

Students with a doctorate in health psychology are highly competitive in the academic job market, and many are employed in traditional academic departments such as psychology, biobehavioral health, kinesiology, and human development. They are also employed by schools of medicine and public health and freestanding comprehensive cancer centers.

Common non-academic jobs include for-profit consulting firms, technology companies (such as mobile medical technologies), pharmaceutical companies, and not-for-profit research organizations (such as those focused on health policy), privately and publicly funded research institutions, government organizations, and a range of non-profit research organizations. For-profit organization. As experts in the fields of health and behavior, health psychologists work closely with researchers and physicians to provide holistic, person-centered health care.

Degree Type

At the PhD level, there are two PhDs. One can earn a degree in health psychology. Although there is considerable overlap in curriculum, the Ph.D. The Clinical Health Psychology major provides additional training in clinical service and a direct path to licensure. Therefore, in addition to the course requirements that graduate students must complete to earn a Ph.D. PhD in Health Psychology, Clinical Health Psychology PhD students must meet licensure requirements established by the American Psychological Association or an equivalent governing body (e.g., Academy of Clinical Psychology).

U.K.

The term 'health psychologist' is a protected title and health psychologists are required to be registered with the Health Professions Council (HPC) and undergo training to a level that qualifies them as full members of the BPS Health Psychology Division. Registered health psychologists who are chartered by the BPS will undergo at least six years of training, three of which are dedicated to health psychology training. After completing a BPS accredited undergraduate degree in psychology, aspiring health psychologists must first complete a BPS accredited master's degree in health psychology (Phase 1 training). After completing the first stage of training, trainees can choose to complete the independent second stage training route of BPS, or enroll in the doctoral degree program in health psychology (DHealthPsy) recognized by British universities. Both training tracks require students to demonstrate they have the following core competencies:

• Professional skills (including implementation of ethical and legal standards, communication and teamwork),
• Research skills (including designing, conducting and analyzing psychological research in a wide range of areas),
• Consulting skills (including planning and evaluation),
• Teaching and training skills (including knowledge of designing, implementing and evaluating large and small training programmes),
• Intervention skills (including implementation and evaluation of behavior change interventions).

Currently, trainees have limited access to fully funded training. The NHS Education Scotland (NES) Stage 2 scheme funds several trainee health psychologists each year, providing trainees with regular posts on NHS boards across Scotland. In 2022, Health Education England (HEE) launched a pilot scheme to provide similar opportunities to aspiring health psychologists across England.

Once qualified, health psychologists can work in a range of settings such as the NHS, universities, schools, private healthcare and research and charity organisations. Health psychologists by training may work in applied settings while working towards registration and chartered status. All qualified health psychologists must also participate in and record their continuing professional development (CPD) in psychology every year throughout their career.

Australia

Health psychologists are registered by the Psychology Board of Australia. The standard route to becoming an accredited health psychologist involves at least six years of training and a two-year registration program. Health psychologists are also required to undertake continuing professional development (CPD) annually.

Where do health psychologists work?

Health psychologists can practice in the following areas:

• Hospital
• primary care plan
• Private clinic
• University
• enterprise
• government agency
• Specialty practices in oncology, pain management, rehabilitation and smoking cessation

Someone with a Ph.D. Health psychology majors have excellent opportunities to work in academic departments, including psychology, biobehavioral health, kinesiology, and human development. Health psychologists can work for for-profit or not-for-profit companies.

Health psychologists can also play research-focused roles that impact:

• medical policy
• public health
• health education issues

Health psychologists can conduct research with privately and publicly funded companies. Health psychologists who work in clinical settings rely on research and physicians to help provide comprehensive, person-centered care.

The expertise of health psychologists is in high demand. If you want to pursue a career in health psychology, know that you will have many professional options. Health psychologists are extremely valuable in hospitals because they help improve care strategies and help educate people on preventive techniques.

generalize

Improving health outcomes is at the heart of health psychology. Human behavior plays an important role in most major causes of death. Some people may develop behaviors that harm their health. By providing support, a health psychologist can help you better understand your health and the importance of looking after your physical and mental bodies.

Health psychology focuses on biological tendencies, behaviors, and social contexts. Psychologists use these factors to study patients and better understand their decision-making processes.

Through collaboration between health psychology and other medical fields, better intervention techniques can be researched and implemented. Other disciplines need to incorporate health psychology into treatment plans. This allows for better communication and a better relationship between doctors and patients.