Health Psychology Health Belief Model Free Essay Example, 2500 words

A good example is the patients with chronic illnesses like tuberculosis and when a doctor makes the decision that the patient should quit some disastrous habits like smoking when suffering from tuberculosis, the patients who may be involved in smoking will be blamed but the doctors will also be blamed for not informing the patient of the best methods to quit smoking and hence not helping the patient to comply with the physician s decision. This means that both the patients and the physicians are to be held responsible if the patient does not comply with the decision of the physician. This is a psychological model that was developed by Rosenstock in the year 1966 and it was very instrumental in the studying and the promotion of the services that were offered by a psychologist. The model has been subject to many amendments throughout the years and the last time that the model was amended was in the year 1988. These amendments have been made to accommodate various developments in the f ield. It is important to note that the model was initially developed to study the behavior of the patients in relation to the response the patients had to treat. We will write a custom essay sample on Health Psychology: Health Belief Model or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now The model initially concentrated on the response of the chronic and acute patients but in modern times, the model has been used to study more general patients (Rosenstock, 236). The health belief model has the basis that an individual will do an action that is related to health if the individual is aware that the health problem is avoidable. The individual will also take an action if the individual has a positive expectation that by the virtue that the individual is doing an action that is recommended by the health fraternity, and then the individual will avoid a health problem. The individual also feels that he or she can effectively and successfully to avoid a negative health condition (Conner, 165). In its initial inception, the health belief model was spelled out in four construct terms that highlighted the threat and benefits. The four constructs are susceptibility, severity, benefits, and barriers.