Essay: Biomedical, Biopsychosocial, and Health Belief Models

This essay explores the multifaceted concepts of health, illness, and wellbeing, emphasizing their significance for a quality life. It delves into three prominent health promotion models: the Biomedical Model, the Biopsychosocial Model, and the Health Belief Model. The Biomedical Model is examined for its focus on biological factors in disease, while the Biopsychosocial Model's holistic approach, integrating biological, psychological, and social factors, is discussed. The Health Belief Model is then analyzed, highlighting its constructs like perceived susceptibility, severity, benefits, barriers, cues to action, and self-efficacy in influencing health behaviors. The essay provides a comprehensive understanding of these models and their impact on health promotion strategies.

ESSAY
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Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8
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INTRODUCTION
Health is fundamental to the successful operation of personnel as well as community.
Health and well-being of an individual can be said to be the prime needs of an individual within
today's world which are essential for a person to live a quality life and sustain for a long duration
of time (Petrillo and et. al., 2015). Well-being of a person is usually associated with the quality
of life that an individual experiences. It tends to demand that the basic needs and requirements of
people are met and they are found to be free from all forms of illness and disabilities. The
present is based upon discussion of key aspects of health, illness and well being from three
perspectives based upon health promotion models, namely, Biomedical Model, Biopsychosocial
Model and Health Belief Model.
MAIN BODY
Health and well-being are given immense priority within existing health and social care
provision. The significance and relevance of promotion of health and well-being owes to the
dramatically rising statistics of morbidity as well as mortality due to a number of health issues,
illness and chronic diseases found among individuals. Physiotherapists play an important role in
relation to the multi-disciplinary health promotion arena (Clark and et. al., 2018). This owes to
the fact that physiotherapists possess the capability as well as scope through which they can
easily promote health in dynamic and modern ways with a view to give significant contribution
towards the betterment of community. The promotion of health allows personnel suffering from
illness or any other kind of chronic situation to enhance their potential for leading a healthy life.
”Health is defined as a state of total physical, social and mental well-being and not just the
absence of an kind of disease or illness." Thus, health and well-being are found to be the two
most important aspects of an individual’s life to ensure that one leads a quality life. In this
regard, doctors as well as medical institutions propose the promotion of significant measures
through which health and well being of an individual can be maintained at all times. In this
regard, one of the most dominant and well renowned models which were taken into use by
medical institutes and health care practitioners was the biomedical model of health promotion.
Biomedical model is a scientific measure that many doctors take up to find out a major reason
behind any particular diseases. This model solely focuses on a kind of biological reasons in order
to learn about a kind of diseases or illness with this level of method instead of using other
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reasons such as sociological or psychological (Maisonnasse and et. al., 2016). Mainly in context
of health and illness, biomedical model is a very surrogate for a human being or human biologic
system. This model has been recognized as one major factor which is required by doctors to take
find out reason behind a particular disease. Instead of using other reason such as sociological.
With use of biomedical model of health, doctors consider their patient as a body that is indulged
in any kind of ill. They can handle, explore and treat disease independently from their own mind
or other way of external measures.
This model deals with a level of physical and biological factors of disease. In this
context, biomedical medical is different in comparison to social model, by realizing medical
professionals who gives thoughts to a wide range of factors. This is basically used health
professionals and doctors can use biomedical model of health to deal with this. This is why,
because doctors and health practitioners are highly aware with this given concept and also they
very well consequences of its impact at a bigger and optimized level. With help of this model,
doctors majorly focus on diagnoses, cure and treatment of diseases with a use of the biomedical
method of the health (Deacon and McKay, 2015). Hence, this biomedical model is highly based
on health-care system or techniques to keep awareness about the health care and illness to the
people at an optimized stage of working. The Biomedical model of health has revealed that mind
and body both work independently or as separate entities as per the biomedical model of health
or illness. Further, it proposes that diseases might have psychological results in the process of
biomedicine.
There are a number of advantages of the biomedical model of health. First of all, it is the
most positive method of procuring health and illness at a higher level. Further, with help of this
model, one can know about causes of diseases and get assistance in finding a right and perfect
solution for it. Thirdly, through this model, researcher can help medical professionals to come up
with finest treatment of a disease (Gidon, Graves, and Mesbah, 2016) While there are so many
advantages of this model, there are also some loopholes or shortcomings of the biomedical
model of health. Firstly, the biomedical model of health says that health and illness are not
highly related to each other. Also, it says that health and diseases are not majorly constructed on
social level or basis which is not relevant. Further, this model doesn’t promote any kind of
prevention. It only focuses on getting perfect treatment either on early or permanent basis.
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Since traditional times, health is treated as equivalent to the lack of disease in an
individual. One’s health could be defined as good on the basis of lack of a fundamental
pathology, however, biologically-driven pathogens as well as conditions would provide a person
with poor health and also the label of being “diseased”. Yet such a slender scope of
understanding of health significantly limited the understanding of wellbeing by individuals,
thwarted the efforts associated with treatment of diseases and perhaps also strived at suppressing
the preventive measures. In this regard, a number of medical doctors as well as institutions have
somehow managed to include a holistic view about health in effective medical application
majorly based upon the Biopsychosocial (BPS) Model of Health and Illness. Here, the overall
concept of wellness is specifically emphasized upon and the state of being in good health in
accordance with the biopsychosocial model is demonstrated by a good quality of life along with
strong relationships.
The biopsychosocial model of health promotion was proposed George L. Engel as a
psychological approach that strived to combine the biological, social and psychological factors in
relation to an individual’s physical and mental health (Day and et. al., 2016). In contrast to the
biomedical approach of health promotion, Engel aimed at developing a more holistic approach
by realising that every patient has one’s own feelings, thoughts and history. This model was
developed to take into account both, illnesses as well as psychological problems. The
biopsychosocial model illustrates the development of illness by way of complex interactions
taking place among biological factors (such as biochemical, infections, hormones, genetic
etc.), psychological factors (such as behaviour, self control, emotional turmoil, personality etc.)
and social factors (such as socioeconomic, familial, cultural, technology, religion, medical etc.)
(The Biopsychosocial Model and Its Limitations, 2019). This model proposes that the workings
of mind, body and environment affect each other significantly. It further states that the three
before mentioned factors are individually not adequate and relevant to foster health and well
being but the interaction that takes place between all of them is what sets the pace for outcomes.
Health promotion should address all the three factors as it is the blend of perceptions of health,
health status and socio-cultural barriers pertaining to access healthcare which tend to influence
the likelihood of a patient getting indulged in health-promotional behaviours such as intake of
medication, proper nutrition intake or a diet and/or engaging in any kind of physical act.
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The biopsychosocial Model can be said to be a very significant step within medical care
as this tends to widen the scope through which health and illness are assessed in clinical practice.
It offers certain advantages for the medical field of professionals as well as for the individuals
who are treated under the advocacy of the biopsychosocial model. The biggest appreciation of
this is this model proposed that recovery, cure and good health does not totally lie in the control
of health care experts but also partially lie in the hands of patients themselves. Besides the
medical expert taking due care of the overall treatment, patients as well as their families can
uphold a conduct which will provide assistance in rapid social and psychological recovery that
will consequently imply a better and quicker physiological recovery. It is usually found that
when health care practitioners make use of this medical approach, patients seldom feel out of
control or helpless. Another merit of this health promotion model is that the treatment proposed
by biopsychosocial model is tailor-made so as to meet the social, physiological and
psychological and social needs and wants of patients (Wade and Halligan, 2017). In contrast to
the biomedical approach which fails to take into account an individual’s mind and emotions,
biopsychosocial model is generally taken into use at an individual level.
Another perspective of health, illness and well being has been explained by way of Rosen
Stock/Becker’s Health Belief Model (HBM). This model was developed by social scientists at
United States Public Health Service with a view to gain an understanding of the failure of
personnel in relation to adoption of disease prevention strategies or even the screening tests
which aid in early detection of a disease. The later uses of this model were to take into account
the responses of patients against symptoms and adherence to medical treatment. HBM suggest
that an individual’s belief in a personal threat of illness or disease together with a person's belief
in the effectiveness of the recommended health behaviour strive to predict the likelihood of the
adoption of behaviour by the person.
The Health Belief Model is derived from the psychological and behavioural theory with
the belief that the two elements of health-related behaviour are, namely, desire to avoid illness or
desire to get well if already ill and the belief that a particular health action will succeed in
prevention or cure of illness. There are six constructs of the HBM which are mentioned below:-
Perceived susceptibility can be defined as the subjective perception of the risk associated
with acquisition of illness or disease by an individual (The Health Belief Model, 2018). There is
extensive variation in an individual’s feelings of private vulnerability to a disease or illness.
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Perceived severity can be referred to as the feelings of an individual on the seriousness of
acquiring illness or disease or leaving the illness untreated. There is a broad variation in a
individual's feeling of severity and it is generally seen that a person often considers the social and
medical consequences while evaluating the severity.
Perceived benefits can be referred to as an individual’s perception of the usefulness of a
variety of actions available to lessen the risk of illness or disease or to treat an illness or disease.
Perceived barriers can be regarded as an individual’s feelings upon the hurdles to
perform a suggested health action. There is an extensive variation within an individual's feelings
of hurdles which direct to a cost/benefit analysis. Here, personnel weigh the optimality of actions
against perceptions such as it may be time consuming, dangerous, unpleasant, expensive etc.
(Skinner, Tiro and Champion, 2015).
Cue to action can be defined as the stimulus required to elicit the decision-making
process for acceptance of any suggested health action. Such cues to action may either be internal
(example- wheezing, chest pain) or external (example- illness of family member) (Yue and et.
al., 2015).
Self-efficacy can be defined as the scale of confidence of an individual in one’s ability to
successfully perform any behaviour.
CONCLUSION
From the above discussion, it has been concluded that health, illness and well being are
essential for an individual to sustain a quality life. Also, it has been analysed that there are a
number of health promotion models that strive at encouraging a healthy way of living for
individuals. A few examples of such models are biomedical, biopshyschosocial, Rosen
Stock/Becker’s Health Belief Model. All of these aim at promotion of health so that all
individuals lead a healthy life.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Clark, A. E. and et. al., 2018. The origins of happiness: the science of well-being over the life
course. Princeton University Press.
Petrillo, G. and et. al., 2015. The Mental Health Continuum–Short Form (MHC–SF) as a
measure of well-being in the Italian context. Social Indicators Research. 121(1). pp.291-312.
Maisonnasse, P. and et. al., 2016. The respiratory DC/macrophage network at steady-state and
upon influenza infection in the swine biomedical model. Mucosal immunology. 9(4). p.835.
Deacon, B. J. and McKay, D., 2015. The biomedical model of psychological problems: A call for
critical dialogue. Lancet. 16. pp.2-3.
Gidon, D., Graves, D. B. and Mesbah, A., 2016, July. Model predictive control of thermal effects
of an atmospheric pressure plasma jet for biomedical applications. In 2016 American Control
Conference (ACC) (pp. 4889-4894). IEEE.
Wade, D. T. and Halligan, P. W., 2017. The biopsychosocial model of illness: a model whose
time has come.
Day, M. A. and et. al., 2016. An empirical investigation of a biopsychosocial model of pain in
multiple sclerosis. The Clinical journal of pain. 32(2). pp.155-163.
Skinner, C. S., Tiro, J. and Champion, V. L., 2015. Background on the health belief
model. Health behavior: Theory, research, and practice. 75.
Yue, Z. And et. al., 2015. Application of the health belief model to improve the understanding of
antihypertensive medication adherence among Chinese patients. Patient education and
counselling. 98(5). pp.669-673.
Online
The Biopsychosocial Model and Its Limitations. 2019. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/theory-knowledge/201510/the-
biopsychosocial-model-and-its-limitations>.
The Health Belief Model. 2018. [Online]. Available Through:
<http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/MPH-Modules/SB/BehavioralChangeTheories/
BehavioralChangeTheories2.html>.
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