Psychosocial and Biomedical Models of Health and Illness

Models of health and illness 1
PSYCHOSOCIAL AND BIOMEDICAL MODELS OF HEALTH AND ILLNESS
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Models of health and illness 2
The psychosocial model of health and illness is a model that is used to link psychosocial
condition and the body conditions to understand and treat diseases better. The model was
advanced by George Engel in 1977 as he was trying to argue about the psychosocial factors of
diseases and the need to focus on psychiatry in treating various conditions. On the other hand,
the biomedical model simply relies on biological factors of a disease. According to the medical
model, health can be simply be defined as the absence of pain or illness from the body and rather
not depending on how a patient feels (Greene, 2017). This paper compares and contrasts both the
psychosocial and the biomedical models of health and illness.
According to Leung, 2015, the psychosocial model differs from the biological model in
their definition of health. This is expressed in the sense that the psychosocial model focuses on
disease as the complete physical, mental and cognitive health on the body. This definition
extends to focus on the psychosocial factors of human conditions such as mental health,
depression or stress. On the other hand the definition of health by the biomedical model has
stripped the definition of its psychosocial aspect. It narrows down its focus on biomedical,
genetic, physical status of the body.
According to Bowling, 2014 the two models also differs in their explanations of the
causes of illness. In the psychosocial model, ill health is caused by an interplay of both medical
and psychosocial factors. Behaviour and personality are seen as key constituents of disease or ill
health. Following this model it is quite clear to suggest that a person is likely to fall sick by
developing certain habits or by choosing to live according to a certain lifestyle. This very
concept makes this model the best in explaining the cause and organ of certain lifestyle diseases,
mental disorders and personality related disease such as eating disorders. On the other hand
however the biomedical model focuses alienates the psychosocial causes of disease and focuses

Models of health and illness 3
on the disease causes as a malfunctioning of the brain. These theorists then attribute the disease
to the malfunction. At the same time, both ideas bear weight as both the brain controls both the
mental and the physical condition of the body. It is therefore true to rule out the fact that both
models need to be used to accurately describe ill health. This is because most diseases affect both
the body and the brain function which in turn affects the psychosocial characteristics of a person
such as the facial expression moods and the personality for the case of long-term illness (Coulter,
2017).
Consequently, the models differs in the ways in the ways in which diseases are treated.
For instance, if a doctor who uses the biomedical model fails to consider the psychosocial factors
of health, it will be hard for the same physician to focus on a behavioural approach to care. This
presents the very difference between the two models in the way that they handle treatment
options. While proponents of the biomedical models will restrict themselves to treating causes
and effects of diseases, the psychosocial proponents will focus on a more holistic approach that
will focus on the comorbidities and the risk factors that surround a certain illness (Rogers, and
Pilgrim, 2014).
Another difference that can be drawn from this difference in quantitative terms is that the
biomedical proponents focus more on causation which borrows heavily from the concept of
hammering a nail into a wood. These proponents believe that the relationship between health and
illness is a cause and effect relationship. It is according to these theorists who argue that causes
cause effects and effects effect changes in the health of an individual. This is not so with the
psychosocial proponents who focus not only on causation but also on correlation as a
relationship between disease and health does not be a causation. These proponents focuses on the
likelihood of having two factors which in this case may be presence of 2 diseases not because