Seeking Health Care

2. Seeking Health Care Chapter three

3. lifestyle • 50% of the deaths of the ten leading causes of death in this country are due to modifiable lifestyle factors

4. Health habit • Health related behavior that is firmly established and often performed automatically without awareness • Can be highly resistant to change as they can become independent of reinforcement

5. Who seeks out health care? • Demographics • Age • Values • Personal control (locus of control) • Social influence • Personal goals • Perceived symptoms • Access to health care • Cognitive factors

6. FEAR • If people are fearful they will change behavior to reduce fear • Not always true: • Too much may undermine behavior

7. Self Efficacy and Health Behaviors • The ability to initiate and follow through with change • Not only , can my actions help, but will I do it • Locus of control not the same thing

8. Self efficacy • Locus of control: if I changed would my health improve? • Self efficacy: am I likely to change my behavior and attain my goal? • Not only do I have the skills but can I coordinate the skills in the proper sequence to meet the goal?

9. Self efficacy and skills • Higher SE and fewer skills may be more likely to persist and learn new skills

10. Self Efficacy involves: • Execution of behaviors and behavioral attainment • Perceived strength of ability to regulate • Thought processes • Affective states • Social and physical environment

11. Powerful predictor: • Kinds of activities people do • How long and intensively they persist • The amount of distress and satisfaction in face of opportunities, challenges and hardships • Exercise: a challenge to be mastered or something to fail at? • avoidance

12. Self Efficacy and Goals • What goals we set ( how high, how low) • Persistence when discrepancy between behavior and goals • Problem solving choices • Decision to enter or avoid goal relevant situations

13. Health Belief model • Is there a personal threat? • The perception that a particular behavior will reduce this threat • Behavior as a result of intention

14. Health Belief model: predicting behavior Perceived susceptibility to disease or disability Severity Perceived benefits of behavior Barriers to health-enhancing behavior

15. Irrational Health Belief Scale • Unrealistic optimism • Irrational beliefs

16. Theory of Reasoned Action • Assumes human are quite rational • Intention to act shaped by one’s attitude about behavior and • Perceived social norms and motivation to comply

17. Theory of Planned Behavior • Adds perception of control over one’s actions

18. Theory of Planned Behavior

19. Precaution Adoption Model • Optimistic bias: others are susceptible but I’m not

21. Models don’t explain it all • Poverty • Racism • Ethnic background • Public policy • Legislation • Lack of medical and health information

22. How we determine our health status • Social and cultural background • Interpretation of symptoms • Conception of what determines illness • Illness behavior: feel sick but not yet diagnosed

23. Illness behavior • Personal factors: • How you view your body • Level of stress • Personality traits • Gender: • Women more sensitive to their bodies & more likely to report non life threatening conditions

24. Illness behavior • Gender • Men more likely to attribute minor symptoms to major problems • Men tend to report only life threatening situations • Age • Young, middle-aged less likely to check out symptoms; elderly: disease or aging?

25. Illness behavior • Socioeconomic and cultural factor • Access to care • Symptom characteristics • Most likely to seek care: • Symptoms are visible • View symptoms as severe • Interfere with lifestyle • Recur or persist

26. Illness behavior: how disease is conceptualized • Need to label symptoms • With label (diagnosis) comes timeline • Attribution lowers anxiety • Think about consequences • When we feel sense of control of disease process more likely to seek health care