University Essay: Biopsychosocial Approach to Chronic HIV Illness

This essay delves into the biopsychosocial approach as a framework for understanding the complexities of HIV and AIDS. It examines the interplay of biological, psychological, and social factors in the disease's progression and management. The essay begins by defining the biopsychosocial model and its significance in health psychology, followed by a detailed overview of HIV, including its transmission, complexities, and the limitations of antiviral therapies. The core of the essay explores the biological influences, such as immunology and viral subtypes; psychological factors, including mental health and coping mechanisms; and social factors, encompassing stigma, cultural attitudes, and the impact of social support. The essay also analyzes the application of various health psychology theories, including the health belief model, social cognitive theory, information-motivation-behavioral model, and theory of reasoned action, in explaining health behaviors and interventions related to HIV prevention and care. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of a comprehensive biopsychosocial perspective for effective HIV management and the need for addressing the multifaceted challenges faced by individuals living with HIV.

Running head: BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL APPROACHES OF HIV
Biopsychosocial approaches of HIV
Name of the student
Name of the university :
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1BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL APPROACHES OF HIV
The biopsychosocial model defined as a scientific framework that contributes in
describing the variable factors such as biological factor, behavioural factors and social factors.
Biopsychosocial mainly focuses on different critical theories of health psychology and
physiology to examine chronic illness and degree of severity. The goal of the biopsychosocial
model in health psychology is to analyses the behavioral factors and critical factors in health
critically. Besides, it also provides multiple ways to cure disease and facilitate the quality of life.
This essay will shed light on chronic illness as Human immune deficiency virus (HIV) and the
disease acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) caused by HIV. HIV is a retrovirus
containing RNA as genetic material (Mattei et al., 2016). HIV includes an inner coat and an
outer coat. Within the inner jacket, it contains eight viral genes. Transmission of HIV mainly
occurs through bleeds, wounds and other body fluids containing HIV. Progression of AIDs is a
long process happens as opportunistic infection only when the level of T helper cells in the body
reduces significantly. Therefore, this essay will illustrate the complexity of HIV and the
relationship between biological, psychological and social factors in HIV in the following
paragraph.
The Complexity in HIV is the reason that many medical experts failed to address the
disease as HIV manage to trick the immunology and antiretroviral therapy. The first complexity
is the different subtype of the retrovirus is differently susceptible to antiviral drugs. The second
complexity is even after use of antiviral drug HIV can induce oxidative stress, proliferation and
apoptosis along with the release of inflammatory mediators. The third complication is HIV can
cause the malignancy due to the preference of co-receptor (Fortenberry et al., 2017). However, as
it is an RNA virus, the antiviral therapy becomes difficult. Antiviral such zidovudine can cure
HIV to some, but efficacy rate varies (Powis et al., 2018).

2BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL APPROACHES OF HIV
The biopsychosocial model is a model in medical science that comprises three crucial
factors such as biology, psychology and social factors that require deciphering all the complexity
of chronic Biological influences that play a crucial role in defining severity are age, hormone,
toxins, the interaction between genes and effect of these factors on human anatomy.
Psychological factors that explain potential health concerns are emotional trauma, lack of self-
control, anger issue due to lack of patience. Social factors cover up the factors such as cultural
concepts in particular stress events, sanitization. Biopsychosocial model inspects every micro
level of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, gastrointestinal disease and other viral
diseases such as HIV causing AIDS (Lehman, David and Gruber, 2017). AIDS one of the
chronic diseases where multi-organ involves in order reducing the well being of an individual.
The complexity of AIDS and other disease influenced by human deficiency virus generally
require the assistance of the biopsychosocial model to detect the degree of severity. AIDS is now
a second leading disease that prevailing around the globe within the age group in between 25 to
44 (Ogden, 2012). In 80% cases HIV that causes AIDS transmitted due to unprotected sexual
intercourse's (Ogden,2012 ). Statistical surveys show that other 20% occupied by blood
transmission and contaminated injecting device for drug injection. Biological factor that plays a
crucial role in developing HIV is immunology. HIV binds to CD4+ of T helper cell and
internalises into the cytoplasm where it can remain as provirus for the decade or due to
environmental stress, nutritional deficiency replicate actively (Simon, Bloch and Landau, 2015 )
Such infected T helper cells attached with adjacent T helper cells to produce Syncytia. Syncytia
can infect 50 other non-infected cells, because of which availability T helper cells decreases
exponentially (Madani et al., 2016). Eventually, when the body has almost no T helper cell, it
gives rise to AIDS as an opportunistic infection along with that other bacterial and fungal

3BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL APPROACHES OF HIV
infection that significantly threat life. Majority of individuals in a population suffers from
secondary infection as immunological surveillance become extremely low. Literature studies
reveal that approximately 32000 in UK diagnosed with Positive HIV infection and amongst
them, AIDS detected in 15000, 12000 died from AIDS/HIV related disease ( Ogden, 2012).
Psychology plays a crucial in the study about HIV and susceptibility of individuals towards HIV.
Several studies suggested an examination of HIV proved that there is minimal possibility that
individual exposed to HIV patients diagnosed with HIV positive. However, a significant number
of arguments stated that psychological state and lifestyle increase the chances of infection if
exposed to HIV. Frequent use of drugs that might be immune suppressive drug and unprotected
sex increases the replication of a virus. Emotional and mental distress increases the replication
and probability of HIV to cause disease. Many arguments stated that social homophobia is
another critical reason for the development of the disease. Researchers researches about the
relationship between coping up of stress and rapid progression toward AIDS. Studies show that
excessive emotional expression is detrimental for the wellbeing of the individual (Pryor, and
Reeder, 2015). In the UK a significant number of gay men when diagnosed with HIV positive,
the psychology of them indicate extremely low self-esteem and high frequency of mood swing
(puttong, 2015 ). This tendency of fluctuation of mood acts as a catalyst for replication HIV and
depleting T helper cell. Most of the scenario supported the fact that acceptance of disease plays a
significant role in coming up with AIDS. Majority of the people are not accustomed to accepting
the disease with positivity. Therefore, the probability of recovery from HIV become very less.
Social and cultural aspect tremendously influence outlook of HIV positive .patient in life.
Literature review and researches of many years examine the diversity of attitude regarding HIV
in the huge population. As HIV defined as one of the diseases whose complexity is not very

4BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL APPROACHES OF HIV
clear, a significant number of individuals are not ready to accept in society. Before HIV come
into existence, a greater part of the population considered HIV as a contagious disease. There,
any individual detected with HIV positive are not accepted by society. They experience a
significant number of social stigmas in population. Therefore, HIV positive patients fear to voice
out about their disease publically. Consequences that worsen the situation are isolation, rejection
and physical violence. The principal reason for these social beliefs is ignorance attitude of the
population. Due to the lack of sound knowledge about disease, people are more vulnerable to
disease whereas countries with advanced technology, individuals have sufficient grasp about
HIV and subsequent disease. Many studies in the UK indicate that homosexual individuals are
prime victims of this stigma that also increases the rate of depression and suicide.
In medical histories related to health psychology many different theories of health
psychology proposed by different researches in a different period. However, it is difficult to
explain which one of the arguments is accurately justified the health-related behavior. New
theories introduced in medical practice that overlap with other methods. These theories also
provide a framework for chronic illness such as HIV to understand diseases deeply. However,
researcher assessed the model by their strength and following the HIV become easier. Four
different models of health psychology explain the severity and health behavior of HIV patient
and subsequent AIDS. The first one, health believe the model that deals with the individual
assessment of behaviour that influenced by health and the particular risks in individual (Sarafino
and Smith,2014). It also focuses on traditional beliefs of own regarding health and attitude
towards standard medication. For example, many youngsters encourage unprotected sex, as they
do not believe that they have high chances of HIV (O'connor, 2014). As a result, in many
countries, the rate of HIV and progression towards AIDS exponentially increases. Another few

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critical factors that support the health believe models are low economic status, physical and
psychological weaknesses of the individual in the rise in an urban area the probability to be
infected by HIV. Due to traditional believe they refuse to treat by health experts and are not open
about their mental state affected by the disease. Therefore, on behalf of many well-known
organizations are working on awareness of HIV and related AIDS. More improved medical
support system health experts try to provide to stop the spreading of HIV with the help of the
health belief model. However, the major drawback of health believes the model is it explains the
individual behaviour towards HIV and risk factor. It neglected the fact that vulnerability towards
HIV infection and mental framework profoundly influenced by social factors. Therefore, it does
not adequately explain severity at a different level. The second model is the social cognitive
theory, which explains the environments and social factors how to influence each other. This
theory explains from observation believes that environmental influences are the reason behind
behavioural outcome (Bandura, 2014). In case of HIV, a significant number of individual hold
on to tradition believes that HIV is a contagious disease that can spread by holding hands or
standing near to HIV positive patients. This leads to an exponential increase of Disease as
patients experience isolation even from family members and another close one, they are not able
to open up about their disease publically. In the UK approximately 89,000 individual living with
HIV infection ( HIV and AIDS in the United Kingdom , 2018). Therefore, Mass education is
required to prevent the epidemic behaviour of HIV. One major drawback of that model is it do
not explain the pathway environment, and individuals influence each other. The third model of
health psychology is information-motivation- behavioural model that explains that little
information about HIV prevention and individual motivation influence the behaviour of risk
reduction such as the use of fresh needle during the intravenous injection or application of

6BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL APPROACHES OF HIV
condom in youngsters to prevent sexually transmitted disease (Mayberry and Osborn, 2014).
Behavioural skills are a reflection of personal belief and personal motivation. However, an
individual with well-formed personality may not be well motivated that leads to ignorant attitude
towards the chronic disease such as HIV. On the other hand, due to the advanced technology, a
significant number of people is motivated to prevent HIV actively. The major drawback of this
theory is it does not reflect the environmental factor that influences the motivation and
personality of a person. The last model of health psychology theory is a theory for reasoned
action, which is dependent on two factors and subjective norms ( Montano and Kasprzyk, 2015).
In most of the scenario, decision making of an individual influenced by other individuals in the
surrounding environment. Working on the prevention of disease based on individual knowledge
without motivation also observed. This theory seeks the attention of health believes model
regarding attitude towards the preventive measure of HIV. The drawback of this theory is this
theory does not explain the link between the self-efficacy and decision making of the individual.
Therefore, collaboration these theories help to solve all complexity of HIV.
There are several arguments arises for HIV and against HIV. In the case of self-testing,
many researchers argue that social stigma is less in advanced countries like the UK, the majority
of the population aware of knowledge about this deadly disease. On the other hand, another
group of researchers claims that due to the mixed population and the difference in culture social
stigma varies between places. Many health cares stated that standard technology makes it easier
to detect HIV with accuracy. On the other hand, many healthcare specialists claimed that the
high rate of definite false taste make it difficult for medical experts to identify the disease.
Thus, it can be concluded that HIV is a chronic illness that kills a significant number of
individuals every year. A considerable amount of people in the population is ignorant of HIV due

7BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL APPROACHES OF HIV
to social stigma and old beliefs. Moreover, the nature of HIV is quite deceiving as it manages to
trick immunity of human along with potential antiviral drugs. Biopsychosocial models are a
combination of three factors that help experts to address the complexity of HIV, and it helps to
address factors that worsen the situation. Apart from biopsychosocial four models of health,
psychology also helps to discuss the psychology and mental status of every HIV positive
individual. Many arguments contradict beliefs about HIV. Therefore, the epidemic nature of HIV
can be prevented by reducing social stigma, more campaign about the transmission of HIV,
specific drug therapy, liberal mentality towards HIV patients.

8BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL APPROACHES OF HIV
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