How Do Values and Beliefs Influence When Facing An Illness?
The values and beliefs They form those styles of representation in the face of facts that people have and that form the basis of each person’s behavior, both in everyday events and in transcendental ones. Furthermore, they bring together the basic elements of one’s own philosophy of life.
The internalized values and beliefs that a sick person, and even their family members, have internalized, will significantly influence the course and even the cure of a disease.
The importance of values and beliefs in the face of diseases
Values and beliefs have differences in their usefulness: beliefs offer a certain coherence between past and future events, while values offer guidelines for behavior in unknown situations by offering a reference for psychosocial adaptive functioning.
When a person gets sick, they use the resources they have to understand their situation, relying on their beliefs and values.. For example, these beliefs would influence the acceptance of a pharmacological treatment in an immovable way for a person with faith in science. However, they would negatively influence the acceptance of pharmacological treatment in a naturalist or person skeptical of traditional medicine.
The subjective feeling of family support is also an important part during the course of the disease, since it is the main core of social functioning.
The locus of Health Control
The sense of control that a person has over their illness is very significant and has to do with Rotter’s locus of control., to which Wallston et al. (1976) called Health Locus of Control.
These researchers were based on the idea that an individual’s potential to engage in a series of health behaviors increases if the subject believes that his or her actions can influence his or her health, and has to do with the degree to which the individual values your health.
The Health Locus of Control It is not proposed as a personality trait but as something specific for each health situation, and that changes depending on the situation (Wallston, 1992). It can be internal or external:
Understand the disease
There are several studies that show that the way we understand the disease significantly influences its course. For example, in a study with multiple sclerosis patients Two negative factors and one positive were isolated in the way the disease was experienced. (Mohr et al.,1999):
The first two factors were directly related to anxiety, and the factor of deterioration in relationships was also related to hostility..
Pakenham (1999) also conducted a prospective study with this type of patients. She found a better prognosis in patients with less incapacity (less dependence) and who attributed more importance to strategies aimed at solving problems.
Concluding
In conclusion, many studies with patients with different diseases suggest that the way the disease is understood, the consequences experienced and the psychological strategies of the patient when facing their illness They are variables that significantly condition a psychological state that allows them to live optimizing suffering to the maximum..
Author: Susana Merino García, Psychologist Specialist in Clinical Psychology and Health, member of BarnaPsico.
