Transcript Document

Getting Ill and Seeking
Medical Treatment
Perceiving and Interpreting
Symptoms
 Generally
we’re not very accurate
at it
 Complicated by a number of
influences
Individual Differences
Some people have more symptoms
 There are differences in what people
can tolerate
 Differ in how much attention is paid to
internal states
 Internally focused people overestimate
bodily changes and experience slower
recovery

Personality and Hypertension:
Effect of Hypertension Awareness
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Aware Hyper
Aware Normot
Unaware Hyper
Unaware Normot
Neuroticism
Aware hypertensive > normotensives & unaware hypertensive,
P < 0.001
Personality and Hypertension:
Conclusion
 Awareness
of hypertension status
confounds assessment of the
association between personality
characteristics and hypertension.
- Could be due to hypertension
labeling effect or to self-selection
bias
Symptom Awareness
 General
stress is associated with
greater reports of symptoms
 Mood - positive mood associated
with fewer symptom reports than
negative mood.
Psychosocial Influences

Prior experience, beliefs, and
knowledge influence expectations about
symptoms.
– Ignore unexpected symptoms, amplify
expected symptoms
– Beliefs about the disease label, causes,
time course, and consequences influence
symptom awareness and experience.
Placebos
 Inert
substance or treatments
– People can experience real symptom
relief.
– Furthermore taking placebos faithfully
is associated with a lower likelihood
of death.
Medical Student’s Disease
 Studying
symptoms leads to
greater focus on one’s own
symptoms (e.g., fatigue), that then
get interpreted as indicative if
disease.
Mass Psychogenic Illness
 Widespread
symptom perception
among a large group of individuals,
without any evidence for physical or
environmental cause.
Sociocultural Influences
 Sociocultural
influences shape how
one perceives, interprets, and
responds to physical symptoms.
Who Uses Health Services?
 Demographic
– Age
– Gender
– Sociocultural
Factors:
Factors influencing how people cope
with health anxiety
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82
Blunters, high info
80
Blunters, low info
78
76
Monitors, high
info
Monitors, low info
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72
70
68
Pre-info
Post-info
Post-exam
Abnormal Illness Behaviours
Hypochondriasis
Preoccupation with the idea that one
has a serious disease based on
misinterpretation of body symptoms
 Preoccupation persistes despite
medical evaluation
 Not delusional
 Causes significant distress or
impairment

Somatization Disorder
History of many physical complaints
beginning before age 30 that occur over
a period of several years and result in
treatment being sought or significant
impairment
 Not intentionally produced

Factitious Disorder
Intentional production or feigning of
physical or psychological symptoms
 Motivation is to assume the sick role
 Factitious Disorder by proxy

The Patient/Practitioner
Relationship
 People
differ in the role they want
to play in their treatment
 Patients who take an active role
recover better and faster
 Practitioners differ in the level of
participation they are willing to give