Psychosocial aspects of health
MEDICAL science has mostly been focusing on the biomedical aspects of managing and preventing chronic diseases.
Illnesses such as diabetes, which affects an increasing number of people in this region, receive substantial research in the attempt to manage and control the disorder.
Very little work has actually been conducted on the psychosocial aspects of many chronic conditions.
Cognitions, emotions and behaviours may play critical roles in explaining their onset and management.
Award-winning health psychologist and senior lecturer of Psychology at the Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Monash University Malaysia, Dr Carina Chan explains: “When you look at a particular disease, it’s not just the biomedical perspectives that are important. The psychosocial aspects such as a patient’s thoughts and perceptions can also make an impact on the management and prevention.
“Your health status, your emotional condition, your stress level – these contribute to understanding of that disease.”
According to Dr Chan, all diseases these days can be treated by drugs. When psychologists look at prevention, there is a lot to do with modifying behaviours.
Prevention relates to taking up exercise, improving dietary food intake, changing the patients’ attitudes towards adopting certain protective behaviours, such as screening.
Dr Chan’s work over recent years has focused on the prevention and management of chronic disease.
“Diabetes is a prevalent problem in middle-income countries and it causes health and economic burdens. There’s been a lot of research addressing the management of diabetes, such as how to help diabetics delay the onset of complications,” adds Dr Chan.
However, there still is a dearth in the research on prevention. Dr Chan believes that attacking the problem early by targeting people who are at risk is just as important as managing the condition. That can potentially be beneficial to a broader population.
Dr Chan says the major theme of her research has been on chronic disease prevention and management.
And she starts out by asking the question of how people with elevated risk of diabetes might perceive their own risks of developing the disease.
In answering that, she successfully developed a diabetes risk perception measure that identifies what people believe to be the main risk attributes associated with diabetes.
“This is important for the government or health industry because when they develop health messages, they have to highlight these risk attributes when reaching out, and educating the public.”
Dr Chan maintains that understanding people’s risk beliefs can also help tailor health communications better to suit audiences that may in turn be associated with lifestyle changes.
She has been instrumental in the development and implementation of a community-based Malaysia Diabetes Prevention Programme that aims to lower the risk of developing diabetes through lifestyle modification.
Dr Chan is happy to be able to share the importance psychology plays in health promotion and disease management in her Monash University Malaysia classes.
“While the biological aspects cannot be overlooked for many health conditions, behaviours allow us to appreciate what motivates people to do or don’t do certain things. It can directly or indirectly relate to health and decision-making,” she says.
An award recipient from the International Diabetes Federation in 2013, Dr Chan says she is eager to work on more projects that can address the links between behaviours and health.
“It’s very rewarding for me to see how my research can be translated to real life settings, such as with my work on diabetes. I hope to be able to do similar types of translational research in other areas of health in the future,” she says.
For more information, call 03-5514 6000 or 013-200 5572. Log on to www.monash.edu.my
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