The multi-factorial model can be used in a variety of ways in psychology. It uses many genetic and lifestyle facts in order to help to diagnose or prevent future medical problems. The model can also be a great psychological tool to determine and help diagnose people with psychological disorders or those who could be prone to them.
This model has helped psychology be able to better understand and manage many health problems. In order to understand how this works, we must first go into more detail about what exactly is the multi-factorial model. The multi-factorial model is made up of many different factors to determine our health and how at risk we are to illness. They can consist of biological factors, sociocultural factors, environmental factors, personality, behavior, and different stressors. Some of the factors in the model we can control such as our behavior; and others we have no control of at all such as our biological factors. In the factors that we can control there are known indicators that will make someone more susceptible to illness.
For example, someone who smokes cigarettes and has a terrible diet put themselves at a higher risk for cancer and obesity. If this person also has biological factors like a father who died of cancer, then they can be at an even greater risk for becoming sick. In applying this model to this scenario, health professionals would be able to determine a course of action to work as preventative steps to keep this from happening. A second example of how we could apply this model to the diagnosis of illness would be someone who could be at risk for a heart attack. We could look at the behavior, such as what type of diet the person could have; we could also look at stressors in this person’s life. If they had a high stress job with a long commute, then it would be safe to say that they had the stressors of daily hassle and frustration as part of their daily routine.
You can see clearly from the two examples that the multi-factorial model can be a great tool to help health professionals diagnose and prevent illnesses. Now that we understand the multi-factorial model and how it can be used, we have a basic understanding of how psychology can help us understand and manage health problems. I will now discuss a specific health problem and how psychology can help in not only treating it, but also in the prevention. Headaches are problems that plague many people on a day to day basis. They can interfere with how we function and how we are able to work. This health problem is known to be stress related.
It is one of the ways that we react to things that we do not deal with in a healthy manner. Stresses can be a great inhibitor to normal life function. Psychology is the best tool to use in order to help prevent stress. We know that day to day hassles in our life can bring about stress. What we may not be aware of is how psychology has helped to give us the tools to curtail some of these stresses. Let’s say that your headaches are muscle-tension headaches.
These are very common during the first stages of being stressed. We tense our bodies and tend to over dramatize the events that bring on the stress. The good news with these types of headaches is that psychology can help us prevent them. If you know that you are prone to muscle-tension headaches, then you can use psychological methods such as relaxation training in order to prevent them.
If we did not have the understanding of how stress can affect us physically, then we would not have these techniques in order to prevent them. Coronary heart disease would be a second health problem that psychology has played a role in not only understanding but helping to manage. The multi-factorial model can also be a big help with this type of illness. The lifestyle choices people make and the behavior they practice play a significant role in making them susceptible to this illness.
There are different aspects such as hostility and anger, life choices, family history, and even someone who exhibits a Type A personality that all work together to put people at risk for coronary heart disease. Through Psychology, we now have a better understanding of how these factors work together putting people at risk. For example, someone who has a high stress job such as a commodities trader and who eats poorly, would not be at the same risk level as someone who has a low stress job and takes care of themselves. We have learned this through the study of Psychology. Psychology has shown us the physical impact that stress and poor life management can have on us.
If we do not take care of ourselves mentally, then physically we can begin to break down. The heart is at the greatest risk for these breakdowns due to stress. Family history also has a big impact on this illness. If a person has a long family history of this illness, then they can take preventative steps to help and lesson their risk. Fifty years ago, none of this would have been taken into account.
Through our gained knowledge of mind and body with the study of Psychology, we now have a better total understanding of ourselves as humans. In all, through Psychology we can see how everything relates. We need to take care of ourselves not only physically, but also mentally. We need to look at all of the factors in our life in order to have the best quality of life we can.
The multi-factorial model was a great step in understanding how everything works together to make us who we are both mentally and physically. All of these different factors come together to make us who we are and what we are about. In using the knowledge gained through the study of the body as a whole, we can now live better and healthier lives. Psychology has taught us that through mind, body, and spirit we can all achieve our goal of long and healthy lives.
