Chapter 6. Reacting To Health Problems

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As you have read about in your health psychology text the ways in which you react to illness or injury have an effect on your ability to get better. The following questionaire will measure how you generally react when your body is not healthy or has experienced illness or injury.

The following are ways of reacting to health problems, such as illness, sicknesses, or injuries. Think of the last illness, sickness, or injury you had before starting the questionnaire. Indicate how much you engaged in the activities listed when you encountered this health problem using the radio buttons, where Not At All = 1, A Little = 2, Occasionally = 3, Fairly Often = 4, and Very Often = 5.

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This questionnaire consists of four subscales measuring the four different styles of coping with injury or illness described below.

Palliative coping – a self-help strategy that aims to reduce the unpleasantness of the condition.

Instrumental coping – a task-oriented strategy in which a person may actively seek more information, such as by consulting a doctor, researching symptoms, or checking family history for signs of genetic vulnerability for the condition. Instrumental coping is closely related to problem-focused coping described in your textbook.

Distraction coping – a strategy of avoidance in which a person tries not to think about the condition by seeking out the company of others, keeping busy, and keeping the mind focused on pleasant thoughts. Distraction coping is closely related to avoidance coping described in your textbook.

Emotional preoccupation coping – in which a person ruminates on the condition, often to the exclusion of other more positive or less stressful thoughts. Health psychologists have found that emotional preoccupation with health conditions is often associated with greater distress and poorer recovery from injury or illness. Emotional preoccupation coping is closely related to emotion-focused coping described in your textbook.

Interpreting Your Score

How did you score on each of the four subscales? Were your scores close to the average of other women or men? Did you score substantially higher (or lower) on one or more scales than other students? Keep these scores in mind as you continue your exploration of health psychology. One of the major themes of the biopsychosocial model is that how you think about events and conditions strongly influences the impact these events and conditions have on your health.