Stress and Role of Practitioner in Healthcare | Case Study

Running head: STRESS AND ROLE OF PATIENT AND PRACTITONER IN HEALTHCARE
STRESS AND ROLE OF PATIENT AND PRACTITIONER IN HEALTHCARE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

2STRESS AND ROLE OF PATIENT AND PRACTITIONER IN HEALTHCARE
Case study 1
The case study refers to the effects of stress on the young woman who was forced to
believe that she was suffering from heart attack when she was having panic attacks due to a lot of
stress. She always felt that she was in danger however, when she went to the hospital for
treatment she was told to breathe in deeply as she was just hyperventilating. There were no
physical findings of her illness when the cardiologist checked her. On her referral to a
psychologist it was found that she had problems with handling of stress that affected her
emotionally and physically too. In the case study, it can be seen that the two models of health are
highlighted. One is the biomedical model of health while the other is the bio-psycho-social
model of health (Taylor 2015). The biomedical model of health focuses on the biological factors
that stress that the health is affected by genes and the hereditary factors. The biological makeup
of the individual determines the health of the individual (Montero-Marin et al. 2014). The young
woman here disregarded her problems of her emotional and psychological well-being and
thought purely in terms of physical terms. Therefore, whenever she got anxious or had panic
attacks she thought that she was having a heart attack and rushed to the hospital for treatment.
The healthcare practitioner tried to convince her that she was not having a cardiac arrest
however; she refused to believe the doctor and went to a cardiologist. This shows that she was
completely dependent on the medical aspect of her health. The cardiologist however referred her
to the psychologist. Here it can be said that the cardiologist took into account her mental
problems and did not simply believe in the biological factors of her health (Tan and Yip 2018).
After getting the inputs from her psychologist, she understood that she was under a lot of stress
and that she was not having a heart attack but it was her emotional breakdown that led her to
have panic attacks.

3STRESS AND ROLE OF PATIENT AND PRACTITIONER IN HEALTHCARE
The bio-psycho-social model of health states that health is an interaction of the
biological, psychological and social factors. The psychological and the social environment of the
person is as important as the biological factors in determining the health of the individual
(Lehman, David and Gruber 2017). The lifestyle and the social support that the person gets is
important in determining the health of the person. The role of the health professionals is to
promote health and prevent diseases. In keeping tune with the bio-psycho-social model of health,
it is important that both the patient and the healthcare practitioner give equal importance to the
psychological and the social factors too along with the biological factors (Van Steenbeek et al.
2016). Here the woman was getting tremendous pressure from her boyfriend and her mother and
the work pressure also led to her suffering from burnout. She ignored her mental health and
failed to realize that stress was destroying her life. The role of both the patients and the health
practitioner is important in realizing that the body can be kept healthy in the true sense only
when all the biological, psychological and social factors are take into account.
Case study 2
Answer 1:
According to the case study, Jamal is 69 years old who had a history of type 2 diabetes. He was
advised to lose weight however; he did not take any further action. Since he had a feeling of
tiredness constantly, he went to his local doctor who prescribed him medication for diabetes.
However, he stopped taking the medicine because he felt dizzy and agitated by it. In the case
study, it is further reported that Jamal had taken all sorts of supplements and his wife encouraged
him to treat his problem by taking all kinds of supplements to lose weight. In a short span of 6
months, he tried all kinds of herbal medicine and nutritional supplements to reduce blood sugar.
He stopped taking them too as they did not show any positive results. On being referred to

4STRESS AND ROLE OF PATIENT AND PRACTITIONER IN HEALTHCARE
another doctor, he said that he has never been sick in his life. All the above evidences prove that
Jamal has little patience and is not that aware of the disease diabetes. The patient did not have
full faith on the doctors and therefore tried all medicines that the doctors did not even prescribe
(Graffigna et al. 2014). On advice from his wife, he tried the herbal medicines and those that
were advertised on the internet. The behavior of Jamal can be said to be complacent as can be
seen in the case study that he had no knowledge about the mechanism of the disease. He had
limited knowledge about self-care management of diabetes and he could not understand how he
got affected by it since he never ate sugar.
The behaviour of the healthcare practitioner too was not appropriate. When Jamal told the
doctor that he had stopped taking the medicine, he simply told him to continue the medicine and
gave no explanation. It is the responsibility of the doctor to make his patient understand the
consequences of not taking the medicine and make the patient know about the adverse effects
that it can have. Here the doctor failed to do so.
Answer 2:
Patients may sometimes want faster results to get better and cured of the disease. Instead
of waiting for the entire dose to complete within a particular time period as prescribed by the
doctors, the patients try out other options to see the results (Krot and Sousa 2017). As in the case
study, Jamal tried out chromium picolinate that is a nutritional supplement for type 2 diabetes
and promotes weight loss, he tried gymnema sylvestre, which is a herbal medicine that reduces
the absorption of sugar into the gut. He tried all kinds of medicines to see faster results. He did
not trust the traditional medicines that the doctors prescribed and moved on to trust non-
professional advices like that of his wife. Therefore, he did not comply with the medical advice
given by the doctors. Non-compliance issues start with lack of communication between the

5STRESS AND ROLE OF PATIENT AND PRACTITIONER IN HEALTHCARE
doctor and the patient. The doctors who do not know the history of their patients well can affect
their relation with the patients. As a result, the patients divert from the advices given to them by
the doctors and work on their own. Moreover, the internet has played an important role too
(Memon et al. 2017). People can search the symptoms and get medical advice on the internet that
can be done without taking any appointments and within a very short period of time. Therefore,
the patients do not want to go to the doctors and do not feel the need to comply with them.
Answer 3:
It is the primary responsibility of the patient to take decisions regarding their own
healthcare. Not all patients play an active role in taking decisions however, then it becomes the
responsibility of the healthcare professionals and services to make them actively participate in it
(Foot et al. 2014). making people realize that they have control over their own mind and body
and the care and support they receive. A systematic way to improve the participation of patients
in their own healthcare is through personalized care and support planning. It ensures that the
people have more proactive conversations with their clinicians and healthcare professionals.
Such conversations would increase the focus on the patients and they will get the support that
they need form the professionals. Another way to improve the patient’s involvement is shared
decision making. Here patients work together with the clinicians to select the tests, treatments
and the management packages that are needed by the patient for their own health benefit. Shared
decision making is the conversation that the patient has with the healthcare professional and
analyse the risks and benefits of the decisions that they take together. Another way is social
prescribing where there is a linking of the patient’s primary healthcare with the support of the
community. It enables the provision of giving non-medical referrals to the patient and the
treatments can then be used to improve the status of health and well-being of the patient.

6STRESS AND ROLE OF PATIENT AND PRACTITIONER IN HEALTHCARE
Personal health budgets and integrated personal commissioning improves the personal outcomes
as well as the experiences of the patient as it gives more control over the choice that the patients
makes for himself (Pomey et al. 2015). The personalized care and support allows the people to
make their own choice to meet their health needs and benefit from it in a more personalized way.
The last and the most important way of improving patients involvement in healthcare
management is self-management (Renedo et al. 2015). It aims to give people long-term
conditions with the management of their health in an effective manner. Here the patients are
recognized as experts as the concept of self-management gives them the power to develop skills
and knowledge about their own health and they can then suggest the ways for their own care.
The approach involves peer support and self-management education. This can improve the
adherence to treatment and medication.

7STRESS AND ROLE OF PATIENT AND PRACTITIONER IN HEALTHCARE
References
Foot, C., Gilburt, H., Dunn, P., Jabbal, J., Seale, B., Goodrich, J., Buck, D. and Taylor, J., 2014.
People in control of their own health and care. King’s Fund.
Graffigna, G., Barello, S., Libreri, C. and Bosio, C.A., 2014. How to engage type-2 diabetic
patients in their own health management: implications for clinical practice. BMC public
health, 14(1), p.648.
Krot, K. and Sousa, J.P., 2017. Factors impacting on patient compliance with medical advice:
empirical study. Engineering Management in Production and Services, 9(2), pp.73-81.
Lehman, B.J., David, D.M. and Gruber, J.A., 2017. Rethinking the biopsychosocial model of
health: Understanding health as a dynamic system. Social and Personality Psychology
Compass, 11(8), p.e12328.
Memon, K.N., Shaikh, N.Z., Soomro, R.A., Shaikh, S.R. and Khwaja, A.M., 2017. Non-
Compliance to Doctors Advices among Patients Suffering from Various Diseases: Patients
Perspectives: A Neglected Issue. Journal of Medicine, 18(1), pp.10-14.
Montero-Marin, J., Prado-Abril, J., Demarzo, M.M.P., Gascon, S. and García-Campayo, J., 2014.
Coping with stress and types of burnout: explanatory power of different coping strategies. PloS
one, 9(2).
Pomey, M.P., Ghadiri, D.P., Karazivan, P., Fernandez, N. and Clavel, N., 2015. Patients as
partners: a qualitative study of patients’ engagement in their health care. PloS one, 10(4).

8STRESS AND ROLE OF PATIENT AND PRACTITIONER IN HEALTHCARE
Renedo, A., Marston, C.A., Spyridonidis, D. and Barlow, J., 2015. Patient and public
involvement in healthcare quality improvement: how organizations can help patients and
professionals to collaborate. Public Management Review, 17(1), pp.17-34.
Tan, S.Y. and Yip, A., 2018. Hans Selye (1907–1982): Founder of the stress theory. Singapore
medical journal, 59(4), p.170.
Taylor, S.E., 2015. Health psychology. McGraw-Hill Education.
Van Steenbeek, F.G., Hytönen, M.K., Leegwater, P.A.J. and Lohi, H., 2016. The canine era: the
rise of a biomedical model. Animal genetics, 47(5), pp.519-527.