Question

Compare the biopsychosocial model of health and the biomedical model of health.

Answer 1

The biopsychosocial model of health looks at the individuals state of health as a influence of a composite set of internal biological factors such as genetic predisposition, biochemical imbalances as well as the larger environmental factors such as the social, economic background which make individuals from poor communities more prone to illnesses. In addition, it takes into account an individual’s overall personality and coping ability in tolerating stress which has a direct impact on the persons health. Thus, from a biopsychosocial perspective, an individual’s debilitating heart condition would be understood in an in depth way by taking into account the sources of stress at work, interpersonal relationships, maladaptive eating habits, family history with cardiac attacks, etc and the individual’s level of anxiety and Ways of coping with stress.

On the other hand, the biomedical model focuses on the nature or the genetic and neurochemical factors in explaining the existence of illnesses. Thus while cause of illness is studied in an in-depth way on a case basis, it is limited to the internal functioning of the patient and may not consider social and cognitive factors such as negative and self-doubting thoughts and emotions of the person which although cannot be localised in the body but are nonetheless influential factors in the development of a severe health condition.