CRITICAL OBSERVATION OF PSYCHOSOCIAL MEDIATORS OF HEALTH HABITS AND PATTERNS OF HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOR

Abstract

Human health in present day’s lifestyle due to technological advancement, stress to compete with world, urbanization, changing lifestyle and changing cultural beliefs of people has given rise to many diseases, particularly life style diseases. The studies have proved that Indians are genetically prone to heart diseases. The top ten causes of illness and death are accidents, suicide and diseases like, cancer, diabetes, blood-pressure and other diseases affected by quality and style of life. These are largely the result of psychological factors, including behavioural pathogens, lack of behavioural immunogens, psychosocial stress and poor coping strategies. The bio-psychosocial model of health and illness refute that biological, social and psychological factors interact in an interdependent or systemic way of maintaining health or causing illness. The emphasis of the article is only on the psychosocial mediators in health and illness. Mediators shape a person's responses to stress. They are the internal and external resources the person can bring to assess and interpret the magnitude stress, to assess his or her own capacities for addressing the stress, and to formulate a coping strategy to overcome the stress.