Week 20: Beliefs about illness and the Self Regulatory Model

This week we looked at how people’s belief about illnesses can influence their response to the condition and how this can be mapped onto the Self-Regulatory Model (SFM). From the editorial of Rheumatology I have understood that this is a thinking process that patients go through when they identify a condition and it is analogous to the scientific method used by scientists: Patients test out their perception of their conditions through their emotions and problem-focused coping efforts. Although this model has been well established, there is evidence that perceptions can be altered with consultations by healthcare professionals which highlighted the impact and role of community pharmacists in improving patient’s health. I also thought back to Andrew’s talk last week, when he emphasised the importance and differences community pharmacists could make in patient’s chronic conditions.

I was fascinated by the phenomena of Medical Student Syndrome (Disease) and what a lively demonstration of how applicable SFM is to students studying a vocational medical degree such as Medicine and Pharmacy. Upon further reading, it reconfirmed my understanding of why SFM is preferred over the health belief model (HBM) because of its address to emotional representations that is absent in HBM. The anxiety stemmed from learning about a medical condition and suspecting the development of the condition studied is very similar to the process patient go through as they self-diagnose. This also extends to the general public, as medical information is more accessible via the Internet and the increasing number of people experiencing anxiety as they self-diagnose. I started to think about if I encounter a patient in the future experiencing a certain condition and how I could counsel them as they already have self-diagnosed.  I am hoping to get more practice in the communication workshops in the SimMan module with medical actors.