Psychology and Health Problems: The Multi-Factorial Model

The Multi-factorial model considers a wide range of influencers to a given person's health to aid in the diagnosis and treatment of various illnesses. These influences include biological factors like family and personal medical history, age, gender, ethnicity, and the body's reaction to infection and stressors. Environmental and behavior factors like air and water quality, diet, and healthy or unhealthy personal habits, like smoking, are the next group of influences to health diagnosis and treatment. Then socioeconomic factors; such as access to healthcare, family circumstances, and prejudice or discrimination issues, are considered. Finally a person's personality and other stressors are assessed. These factors include the results of the personality testing we have discussed in previous weeks, major life changes, and daily home and workplace stressors.

Each of these factors can affect the way a person reacts to an illness or the treatment for the given illness. For instance; if someone is unable to afford regular doctor visits they are more likely to put off general or preventative care until a health issue becomes a more urgent need often requiring an emergency room visit. Parents who are not working or make lower wages may also forego their healthcare needs so that there is more money available to care for their children.

Fear, or pessimism, is also deterrents for some personality types. Some individuals may be so afraid that they have inherited a genetic disorder or contracted a disease that will shorten their life or force them to drastically change the way they live that they will avoid seeking healthcare so they can continue to live as if they are perfectly healthy. This is a very unhealthy behavior because without routine check-ups small issues can grow into larger ones, and potentially life-threatening issues cannot be discovered early enough to avoid long-term effects on one's health. For example, having a mammogram or pap smear can catch potential cancers in their early stages making it possible to remove or treat the cancer cells before they can mutate further and infect other bodily organs; therefore requiring more drastic treatments, increased pain and recovery times, and a greater chance of death.

Diabetes can be genetic or can develop due to a person's lifestyle and diet. Even when both parents are diabetic a child still has a chance that he or she will not become diabetic as well. Similarly, a child of parents with no history of Diabetes in the family can still develop the disease because they have a poor diet or their lifestyle includes other risk factors that could lead to development of the disease. My household has experienced a major wakeup call during the past year. Three of five people that have been living, dining, and often working together since 2004 have been diagnosed with high blood pressure and diabetes and the other two of us have slightly elevated blood pressure that does not yet require medication. One diabetic has no family history of the disease, nor any family history of heart disease. The second roommate's mother was an insulin dependent diabetic and had heart disease as well as cancer; frighteningly this is the only medical history she has to go on because her mother was adopted and knew nothing of her biological parents' histories and very little is known about her father's family history. The third roommate with diabetes has a sibling in this household that has not developed the disease and two parents that have Type-2 Diabetes but no family history of heart-disease. Finally, there is me; I have some family history of heart disease and cancer, but no diabetes and I have not developed any of these health issues as of today. However, the information I have researched as read about all three major health issues concerns me because we haven't had the best diet during our time together as roommates and most of us have many other risk factors in our daily lives.

I believe that psychology is playing a large role in helping doctors and patients find ways to treat these, and many other, illnesses. By examining the larger picture doctors can better identify potential problems before they develop into serious health risks. I can now see how important it is for doctors to be aware of other stress factors in their patient's lives in order to better diagnose and treat them. Without the personality tests that psychologists have developed a doctor might prescribe exactly the same regime of medications, lifestyle and diet changes, or surgical procedures for each patient that was diagnosed with a particular disease. My household alone has shown me that different personalities react differently to medicines and treatments and how genetics does not always play a part in a person's development of some diseases. The household members who have type A personalities also tend to be more neurotic and require higher doses of blood pressure medication to control their blood pressure, and those of us who are more on the type B side of the chart either use a lower dosage or are not on any medication at all. Similar differences exist when looking at our instances of diabetes; the type A personalities take higher doses of their prescriptions and one is being considered as a potential candidate to change from pills to insulin shots to control the disease.

Source:THEODORE REICH, C. ROBERT CLONINGER, and SAMUEL B. GUZE
The Multifactorial Model of Disease Transmission: I. Description of the Model and its Use in Psychiatry
The British Journal of Psychiatry, Jul 1975; 127: 1 - 10.