Psychology OCR G543 - Clinical - Healthy Living

Health belief model: The health belief model considers 3 cognitive factors in predicting people's attitudes towards health:

• Perception for the need of action - the percieved seriousness of the diesease and their percieved susceptability to the diesesae affect when the person may act.
• The estimation the costs/benefits of taking action - people must believe that the behaviour/treatment will be effective and that the benefits outweigh the costs.
• A cue to action - something that makes the person aware of the need to act. Internal cues such as symptomns and external cues such as media campaigns.

Becker: Used the HBM in an attempt to investigate the adherence to medical regiemes (mothers administering asthma medication to their children). There was a positive correlation between the mothers' beliefs about their childs' susceptibility to asthma attacks and adherence to the regime (the more susceptible the mothers thought that their children are, the more they stuck to a regime). There was a negative correlation in the costs (such as disruption of activities, child complaining about medication) and asheremce (the greater the cost, the less the adherence.)

Other variables played a part such as mothers who were married and well educated were more likely to stick to the regieme.

Theory of Locus of Control: An explanation of why we may or may not adhere to medical regimes is whether or not we believe in an internal or external locus of control. An internal Locus of Control is when we believe that we have control over our health - if we become ill we can control it, beat it and survive. An external Locus of Control is when we believe our health is controlled by an external factor (fate, religion, doctors, etc.). Studies have shown that many who survive cancer have an internal Locus of Control.

Rotter found that results from the 6 studies he reviewed showed that participants with an internal Locus of Control were more likely to exhibit behaviours that enable them to cope with potential threats of illness and to overcome illness.

Conclusion: People who attribute health internally are more likely to be healthy. Knowing this may help as it may be productive to look at the development of the internal Locus of Control and to develop treatments which help people feel more in control of their own health, so that they exhibit more healthy behaviour. 

Aim: To investigate the effectiveness of TV advertisements that showed the dangers of chip pan fires.

Method: a 12 week TV campaign on the dangers of chip-pan fires and then the 3 simple steps to deal with such an incident. The advert also showed what would happen if a fire wasn't put out and showed a close-up of injuries caused (fear arousal).

The success of the campaign was measured through actual fire brigade statistics.

Findings: The objective data showed a great reduction in reports of chip pan fires which suggests that the media campaign was successful.

Conclusion: Fear arousal and public awareness to the dangers may be responsible for the reduction in reports, but also showing people how to safely deal with the fires and how to prevent them is likely to reduce reports to the fire brigade as the person has the confidence and knowledge to deal with it themselves without the need of the fire brigade.

Aim: To review the impact of the passing of legislation enforcing that children wear cycle helmets (Maryland, USA).

Method: Natural experiment.

Sample: 7000+ children aged 9-15 from 47 schools within three counties (1 with the law and 2 control counties).

Procedure: A questionnaire (Likhert scale) asked about helmet ownership and use, and awareness of the law. Parents were asked to help and their consent was gained.

Findings: In the county with the law passed, the usage of cycle helmets had increased greatly, especially amongst children aware of the law, whereas the control counties had no significant increase.

Conclusion: Passing legislation is a very effective way of changing behaviour and has more effect than education campaigns alone. However legislation can never be the sole method of health promotion (people still drink and drive, despite it's illegality).

Aim: To test the effectiveness of fear arousal in health awareness campaigns.

Method: Self-report - questionnaire.

Procedure: A sample of smokers were divided into two groups (a moderate fear and high fear group). Both groups were interviewed before the experiment and then given information on the dangers of smoking. The high fear group were also shown a fear arousing video of a cancerous lung being removed from a paitent. It was so graphic that some left the room. The two groups were then asked again to fill out the same questionnaire.

Findings: More participants in the high-fear arousal group said that they would give up smoking.

Conclusion: The high fear arousal group was more effective in changing people's attitudes and intentions in regards to smoking.