4 Ps Of Biopsychosocial Model – A Detailed Overview

In psychology, the diagnosis of mental health disorders is a multidisciplinary approach. Mental health disease diagnosis or treatment includes several factors. In the past, the trained psychiatrist observed that people with mental stress are ill in the same way as people with some physical illness. Further research reported that this trend is due to some changes in the brain that cause physical changes in the patient. Thus, to link mental disorders with other aspects of becoming ill, George Engel proposed a biomedical model named the Biopsychosocial model to treat mental disease by knowing its biological, psychological, and social bases as well. Thus, this article will discuss the biopsychosocial model along with its three aspects, 4Ps and examples.

What is the biopsychosocial model?

In psychology, the biopsychosocial model acts as a guide to studying psychological disorders. This model was first conceptualized in 1977 by George Engel. The point behind the formulation of this model is the fact that a person’s medical condition cannot be only understood by examining biological factors, but other factors such as psychological and social aspects are also equally important. Biological factors include physiological pathology. Psychological evaluation of disorders includes emotions, thoughts, grieves, and other psychological distress.

This model is frequently used in chronic pain as it is a psychophysiological behaviour pattern that is monitored by using any one of these factors (bio, psycho or social). Thus, in psychological disease diagnosis, the biopsychosocial model is important as it gives suggestions to integrate the psychological treatment with physiotherapy so that all components of pain or disorder can be addressed. In a few simple words, this model aims to help primary doctors to see psychological disorders from a multidisciplinary approach to develop a better relationship between patients and clinicians.

What are the 3 aspects of the biopsychosocial model?

The biopsychosocial model does not measure emotions directly. Rather, it helps in the evaluation of medical situations in terms of threat and risk factors. For using this model in evaluation, the patient must be active enough to participate in a task. According to this model, the clinician must start the diagnosis by exploring the factors that may be the cause of mental illness. These factors are mostly presented in three aspects that the term biopsychosocial also reflects. If you face any problems in representation, you can hire cheap assignment writing services. The term biopsychosocial is the fusion of three terms, biological, psychological, and social. Thus, the three important aspects of the biopsychosocial model include biological factors, psychological factors, and social factors. The following is a brief description of each of these aspects.

Biological aspect:

The biological aspect of a medical condition means the evaluation of the relationship between the body’s health and disease. For example, a mental health disease, ‘depression,’ may be the result of many factors like genes, hormonal disturbance, and brain chemicals. These factors have direct relationships with the patient’s health and the occurrence of disease; thus, they named biological risk factors of a disease.

Psychological factors:

The manifestation of a medical condition does not solely rely on biological factors, but diseases such as depression and anxiety may have a psychological basis as well. The coping style, social support, deep grief, and some sort of trauma are examples of some of these psychological factors. For example, if a clinician treats a depressed patient, he cannot give 100% results without eliminating its route cause (like fear or self-esteem).

Social factors:

It includes the risk factors of a disease that have roots in social interactions and community activity-related disputes. The complete eradication of social interactions from a life of extroverts often causes seclusion and disturbs lifestyles. Examples of social factors responsible for mental disorders include interaction with a peer, family circumstances, and other relationships.

What are the 4 Ps of the biopsychosocial model?

The VCE Psychology Study Design suggests psychology students use the 4P factor model as a division of the biopsychosocial model for the analysis of mental health and diagnosis of mental health disorders. The 4P involves in the biopsychosocial model includes Predisposing, Precipitating, Protective, and Perpetuating. The following is a brief description of all these components of the 4P model:

Predisposing:

Predisposing is the feature that explains the vulnerability of a patient to show symptoms. It includes medical history, psychiatric history, family history, chronic social stressors, and genetics. These are the factors whose presence indicates that a patient is vulnerable to a particular mental disease, but it does not guarantee the occurrence.

Precipitating:

Precipitating factors explain why a patient is brought to a hospital. It focuses on factors showing the reasons for a patient’s discomfort. Here, the clinicians explore why the patient decides to come. Such reasons may be current symptoms, the onset of a disease, behavioural changes, concurrent illness, and many more.

Perpetuating:

Perpetuating factors are things that make the patient’s condition worsen as the symptoms progress. It includes the severity of the condition, unresolved precipitating and predisposing factors, and other compliance issues.

Protective:    

The protective factors are those that prevent and reduce the occurrence of a mental disorder. These protective factors include resilience, willpower, and the patient’s strength or motivation to fight the disease. It also includes the support from the family, fellows, and social groups. The table below represents the 4Ps of the biopsychosocial approach:

According to this table, the clinician must report all these factors for better diagnosis and treatment of any mental disorders.

What is an example of the biopsychosocial model?

The biopsychosocial model explains the development of illness by measuring the complex relationship between the three aspects: biological factors, psychological factors, and social factors. Its example includes a person with a genetic predisposition for depression must have social risk factors like extreme stress at work or school along with perfectionistic tendencies (psychological factors) that trigger genetic risk factors of depression.

Conclusion:

The causes of mental disorders are complex; thus, to know the root cause of a disease by exploring only one of them does not prove fruitful. Rather, a model addressing all these factors is important for improving personal care. Thus, the biopsychosocial model proposed by George Engel is a multidisciplinary approach that aims to improve the mental health of patients by considering three aspects. Its three aspects include biological factors, psychological factors, and social factors. Moreover, 4P models further include Predisposing, Participating, Perpetuating, and Protective risk factors. Thus, by keeping in mind the 4P risk factors and three aspects of the biopsychosocial model, clinicians can treat mental orders because all humans greatly differ from each other.