Free Nursing Dissertations - The Traditional Dominant Bio-medical Model Within Medicine Offers Little
The traditional dominant bio-medical model within medicine offers little insight into behaviours which are non pathological (Engel, 2002). This is the case not only in seeking explanations into smoking but also for other lifestyle choices associated with a higher risk of illness.
The bio-medical model can be accused of reductionism, of seeking explanations to illness and disease which are isolated to single simple causative agents (Curtis, 2002). This model still dominates many areas of health care due to its effectiveness at times in specific instances of disease. Yet in considering an event such as continued smoking during pregnancy the major inadequacies of the model can be highlighted and pointed out. These can be seen primarily as not considering the broader psychological and social factors dealing with illness and disease, (Ogden, 1996, Talyor, 1995). Arising out of the criticisms of the bio-medical model theories generally from psychology were found to have an explanatory value and predictive merit when applied to problems associated with health and illness. It thus led to the emergence and articulation of a new model, a biopsychosocial model (Ogden, 2002).
The emergence of the biopsychosocial model then has had major implications for understanding the behaviour of people both before illness commences, during and also after illness. This model can be seen as a systems model, which is non-reductionist by virtue of the fact that it considers a wide range of variables, biological, social and psychological in explaining the behaviours of people that might cause illness and how people view the illness process itself (Stroebe and Stroebe, 1995). As such developments in health psychology can be seen at times as critical of mainstream beliefs concerning health and the role of individuals in their health (Stam, 2002). Yet while it has been critical it can be argued that a much better view is to see the insights gained from health psychology as being complementary to an in-depth and detailed analysis of individuals and their health (Pitts and Philips, 1998).
Health psychology has emerged since the 1970s and it arguable that it has become a valuable resource in both predicting health and as a part of the clinical process. Its utility as an aid for understanding disease and predicting importantly in regards to the current topic of smoking during pregnancy in order to analyse success or failure of strategies of prevention are manifest. In relation to this a number of predictive models illustrate in contrast to the reductionist bio-medical model the various influences and interactions which determine not only patient’s behaviours but also critically their health status.
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