Contributions To Medical Psychology

The role of the clinical psychologist has traditionally been confined to psychiatry, but with the development in medicine of the importance of treating the 'whole man' it has been realized that we have neglected the psychological aspect of medical care. This book, the first in a series of volumes on the subject of medical psychology, provides 10 important contributions on how psychologists can provide a service and implement research in areas of medicine where the 'human aspect' has been eroded by technological advances

Medical Psychology: Contributions to Behavioral Medicine discusses the relationship between medical psychology and behavioral medicine and includes critical reviews of the status of diagnostic, treatment, and preventive approaches to a wide variety of medical disorders such as hypertension, cancer, and chronic pain. A quantitative and qualitative approach to neuropsychological evaluation is also presented. Comprised of 26 chapters, this book begins by tracing the history of the relationship between psychology and medicine and assessing the status of psychology's role in the medical center. The second and third sections deal with approaches to the assessment, treatment, and prevention of various medical disorders including hypertension, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. The third section also examines several special problems within the provinces of medical psychology and behavioral medicine. The fourth section presents reviews of clinical and research topics of particular interest to all medical psychologists and behavioral medicine specialists, including adherence to health care regimens and professional services evaluation in a medical setting. This monograph will be of value to research investigators and practitioners within the behavioral sciences and medicine.

Decision making is the physician's major activity. Every day, in doctors' offices throughout the world, patients describe their symptoms and com plaints while doctors perform examinations, order tests, and, on the basis of these data, decide what is wrong and what should be done. Although the process may appear routine-even to the physicians in volved-each step in the sequence requires skilled clinical judgment. Physicians must decide: which symptoms are important, whether any laboratory tests should be done, how the various items of clinical data should be combined, and, finally, which of several treatments (including doing nothing) is indicated. Although much of the information used in clinical decision making is objective, the physician's values (a belief that pain relief is more important than potential addiction to pain-killing drugs, for example) and subjectivity are as much a part of the clinical process as the objective findings of laboratory tests. In recent years, both physicians and psychologists have come to realize that patient management decisions are not only subjective but also prob abilistic (although this is not always acknowledged overtly). When doc tors argue that an operation is fairly safe because it has a mortality rate of only 1 %, they are at least implicitly admitting that the outcome of their decision is based on probability.

This book provides a holistic understanding of the state of health psychology in the Indian context and the types of psychological and social support and welfare that are offered and required within treatment processes for various illnesses. The book discusses why health care should be the prerogative of both the biomedical profession and health psychologists and how they work together with medical professionals to augment public health. It emphasises the shift from biomedical to biopsychosocial approach in strengthening health care outcomes. The book highlights the substantial contribution of health psychology to the Indian health care system through simple, cost-effective, indigenous, and standardised techniques that worked efficiently in the context of various diseases. It projects the emerging trends and innovative techniques in health psychology in handling challenging health care needs. This book will be of interest to students, teachers, and researchers of psychology, psychiatry, social psychology, sociology, social work and South Asian studies.