11/25/2024
Psyc 463:
Health Psychology
Lecture 3
Research in Health Psychology
Dr. Margaret Amankwah-Poku
Office Hours- Tuesdays 10:00am-12noon
E-mail- mamankwah-poku@[Link]
The Role of theory in research
A theory is a set of analytic statements that
explain a set of phenomena, such as why
people practice poor health behaviours (Taylor,
2018)
Theories are descriptions of how things, or
people, are constructed and how they behave
(Sutton & French, 2007)
Theories help us to understand events and to
predict what is likely to happen next (Sutton &
French, 2007)
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The Role of theory in research
Theories explain why people behave differently
Thus, it facilitates prediction of the behaviour of
particular types of people or people in particular
roles and/or situations (Sutton & French, 2007)
In the study and practice of health psychology,
references is made to several theories
E.g.- Theory of Planned Behaviour which
predicts and explains when people change their
health (Taylor, 2018)
The Role of theory in research
Research in health psychology is guided by both
theory and practical problems (Painter, Borba, Hynes, Mays,
& Glanz, 2008)
Theories provide guidelines for how to conduct
research and interventions (Mermelstein & Revenson, 2013)
E.g.- One investigator can use the Rational Emotive
Behaviour Therapy to understand how people feel
about diagnoses with diabetes
Another investigator can use the theory to develop
an intervention to help patients come to terms with
their illness and treatment
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Research in Health Psychology
In health psychology, both qualitative and
quantitative designs are used in research
Depending on the questions a researcher seeks
to answer, both methods can also be used-
(mixed methods designs)
E.g.- a qualitative study may be conducted to
explore a novel area
Then, based on the issues identified, a survey
maybe conducted or vice versa
Qualitative research
Qualitative research may follow a survey or
experiment to investigate how and why
participants responded the way they did
(Payne, 2007)
Interviews and focus groups are very popular
and efficient methods for collecting
qualitative data
Interviews are conducted one-on-one
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Qualitative research
Focus group involves:
Engaging a small number of people in an
informal group discussion
`Focused' on a particular topic or set of issues
(Wilkinson, Joffe & Yardley, 2004)
Participants are usually 8 to 12 or as low as 4
to 8
They may be pre-existing clusters of people-
family members, friends or work colleagues
Or drawn together specifically for the research-
breast cancer patients (Wilkinson, Joffe & Yardley, 2004)
Qualitative Research
Types of qualitative research
Ethnography
Case-study
Grounded theory
Phenomenology (e.g. Interpretative
Phenomenological Analysis [IPA]
approach)
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Quantitative research
The main designs used in quantitative health
psychology research are
Experimental studies (including randomized
controlled trials)
Correlational studies
Prospective and retrospective studies
Cross-sectional and longitudinal, studies
Multiple-case design, or collective case design
Genetic studies
Experiments in health psychology
In an experiment, a researcher
Creates two or more conditions that differ
from each other
Participants are randomly assigned to these
different conditions
Their reactions are measured
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Experiments in health psychology
Experiments to evaluate the effectiveness of
treatments or interventions are also called
randomized clinical trials
E.g.- Experiments in health to determine if social
support groups improve adjustment to cancer (Taylor,
2018)
Cancer patients are randomly assigned to
participate in a support group or to a comparison
condition, (e.g. educational intervention)
The patients are evaluated to determine how the
two groups differ in their adjustment
Experiments in health psychology
When we manipulate a variable and see its effects, we
can establish a cause-effect relationship definitively
Thus, experiments and randomized clinical trials are
the gold standards of health psychology research
(Payne, 2007)
Unfortunately, in some instances, it is not practical to
conduct experimental studies
E.g.- One cannot randomly assigning patients to
diseases
We cannot manipulate the past lifestyles of people
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Correlational Studies
A number of researches in health psychology use
the correlational method
The term correlation refers to the ‘co’ or ‘joint’
relationship that exists between variables (Sarafino
& Smith, 2011)
Health psychologist investigate whether changes
in one variable correspond with changes in
another variable
E.g. A correlational study, for example, might
reveal that people who are more hostile have a
higher risk for cardiovascular disease
Correlational Studies
E.g. Heart function and people’s diets,
particularly the amount of cholesterol they
consume (Sarafino & Smith, 2011)
Disadvantage of correlational studies- it is
difficult to determine the direction of causality
unambiguously
However, correlational studies enable health
psychologists to study phenomena where
variables cannot be experimentally manipulated
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Quasi-experimental Studies
(Sarafino & Smith, 2011)
Quasi-experimental studies look like experiments
because they have separate groups of subjects
However, they are not because the subjects were not
randomly assigned to groups
In some types of quasi-experiments, the independent
variable is manipulated, but in other types, it is not
A commonly used quasi-experimental approach is
called an ex post facto study,
Participants are categorized and placed in groups on
the basis of an existing variable or circumstance
Groups based on gender (males and females),
cholesterol level (high, moderate, and low), or diet
(high-fat and low-fat)
Quasi-experimental Studies
(Sarafino & Smith, 2011)
E.g a quasi-experimental study relating to the
cholesterol theory of heart disease
Investigating if people’s cholesterol level at the time
of a heart attack is associated with the severity of the
attack
Consult the medical records of heart disease patients,
Categorize the patients as having a high or low
cholesterol level at the time they were admitted to
the hospital
Then determine whether the attacks were more
severe for one group than for the other
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Prospective and Retrospective
Designs
Retrospective and prospective approaches to
study health were developed by
epidemiologists
They are examples of quasi experiments
These approaches have been useful in
identifying risk factors for specific illnesses
Some of the problems with correlational
studies can be remedied by using a prospective
design
Prospective Designs
Prospective research looks forward in time to
see how a group of people change, or how a
relationship between two variables change over
time (Taylor, 2018)
It studies whether differences in a variable at
one point in time are related to differences in
another variable at a later time
We could do this to see whether certain
characteristics or events in people’s lives are
associated with their eventual development of
one or more diseases
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Prospective Designs
Health psychologists conduct prospective studies
to understand the risk factors relate to health
conditions
E.g.- intervening in the diet of one community
and not in another, and over time examining the
difference in rates of heart disease (Taylor, 2018)
Prospective Designs
Alternatively, measure the diets that people create
for themselves then,
Observe changes in rates of heart disease, based
on how good or poor the diet is (Taylor, 2018)
Interview them periodically over several years,
have a physician examine them, and check their
medical records
We might find that compared with people who
did not have heart attacks, those who did had
eaten diets that were much higher in
cholesterol (Sarafino & Smith, 2011)
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Prospective Designs
E.g.- To understand what factors are
associated with early breast cancer in women
at risk
We might follow a group of young women
whose mothers developed breast cancer
Identify which daughters developed breast
cancer, and
Identify factors reliably associated with that
development, such as diet, smoking, or alcohol
consumption (Taylor, 2018)
Retrospective Designs
The prefix retro means ‘‘back’’ or ‘‘backward,’’
and spective comes from the Latin word
meaning ‘‘to look’’ (Sarafino & Simth, 2011)
Retrospective designs, look backward in time
in an attempt to reconstruct the conditions
that led to a current situation (Taylor, 2018)
It uses procedures that look back at the
histories of subjects, such as individuals who
do or do not have a particular disease (Sarafino
& Simth, 2011)
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Retrospective Designs
The purpose of this approach is to find
commonalities in the people’s histories that
may suggest why they developed the disease
(Sarafino & Simth, 2011)
E.g.- identifying the risk factors that led to the
development of AIDS
Taking extensive histories of the men who
developed this disease
Researchers were able to determine anal sex
without a condom was related to the
development HIV/AIDS (Taylor, 2018)
Retrospective Designs
(Sarafino & Simth, 2011)
Identify two groups of individuals
One group would consist of people who have
already developed a particular illness, such as
heart disease
They would be compared against a control group,
consisting of similar people without the disease
Then examine the two groups for characteristics
of their histories that are common to one group,
but not the other
We might find, for example, that the heart disease
victims reported having eaten higher-cholesterol
diets during the preceding 10 years than the
controls did
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Retrospective Designs
(Sarafino & Simth, 2011)
Although the retrospective approach is
relatively easy to implement, it has a potential
shortcoming
When the procedures rely on people’s
memories, especially of long-past happenings,
the likelihood of inaccurate reports increases
Developmental Designs
Health psychologists can examine and
compare participants at different ages to study
life-span development
Age cannot be manipulated so individuals are
assigned to groups based on their age
This approach is also quasi-experimental, and
therefore, age itself cannot be viewed as a
cause of health or behaviour
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Developmental Designs
Two basic approaches used for studying the age
variable
1. Cross-sectional approach- different individuals
of different ages are observed at about the same
time
2. The longitudinal approach- involves the
repeated observation of the same individuals over
a long period of time (Sarafino &Smith, 2011)
The longitudinal approach is like the prospective
method, but it focuses specifically on age as a
variable
Developmental Designs
E.g.- Age-related changes in dietary intake of
cholesterol among middle-aged adults
Cross-sectional design- evaluate the diets of e.g.
50 adults at three approximate age- 35, 45, and
55 years
Longitudinal design- evaluate the diets of 50
35-year-olds and again when they are 45 and 55
years
This longitudinal study would take 20 years to
complete (Sarafino & Smith, 2011)
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Developmental Designs
Cross-sectional designs are generally the
easiest to conduct and the least expensive
Participants are interviewed, asked to
complete questionnaires, or are measured in
other ways, on one occasion (Sutton & French, 2007)
Data collected are typically analysed in terms
of group comparisons
E.g. comparing men and women, or in terms of
associations or correlations
Single-Subject Designs
(Sarafino & Smith, 2011)
Sometimes researches are done with just one
subject- such as the case study
Researcher constructs a systematic biography
from records of the person’s history,
interviews, and current observation
This kind of research is useful in describing, in
depth, the development and treatment of an
unusual medical or psychological problem
Other types of research that use one subject
are called single subject designs
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Single-Subject Designs
(Sarafino & Simth, 2011)
This approach is often used for demonstrating
the usefulness of a new treatment method for
a specific medical or behavioral problem
In the simplest of these designs, data on the
person’s problem at the beginning and end of
treatment are compared
Often, follow-up assessments are made weeks
or months later to see if the person’s condition
has regressed
Single-Subject Designs
(Sarafino & Smith, 2011)
The principal disadvantage of single-subject
approaches is that information on only one
subject, no matter how detailed it is, may not
describe what would be found with other
individuals
A major purpose of psychological research is to
collect information that can be applied or
generalized to other people
Nevertheless, studies using one subject stimulate
the development of new treatment procedures
and suggest topics for further research
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Genetic research
(Sarafino & Smith, 2011)
Twin and Adoption Studies
Health psychologists sometimes conduct research to
determine whether hereditary factors influence
people’s health and illness
Methods used are based on a distinction between
two types of twins
Monozygotic (MZ), or identical, twins are conceived
together and have the same genetic inheritance
Dizygotic (DZ), or fraternal, twins are conceived
separately and are no more genetically similar than
singly born siblings and may, of course, be of
different sex
Twin Studies
(Sarafino & Smith, 2011)
Much of the research on hereditary factors has focused
on the differences in characteristics shown in MZ twins
as compared with DZ twins
Investigations using this approach are called twin studies
The rationale for making these comparisons, although
statistically complex, is logically simple
Since the two individuals in a MZ pair are genetically
identical, it can be assumed that differences between
them are environmentally determined
Conversely, the greater the similarity between MZ twins,
the more likely it is that the characteristic is genetically
influenced
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Twin Studies
(Sarafino & Smith, 2011)
Differences between DZ twins, on the other hand,
are due to both genetic and environmental factors,
even when they are the same sex
If we could assume that both members of each MZ
and same-sex DZ pair that we study have had equal
environmental experiences,
we could measure genetic influence simply by
subtracting the differences for MZ from the
differences for DZ twins
Even though both members of each MZ and DZ pair
may not have had equal environmental experiences,
researchers can take the differences into account
When they do, important genetic forces are still
found (Scarr & Kidd, 1983)
Adoption Studies
(Sarafino & Smith, 2011)
Another way to examine hereditary influences is to
study children adopted at very early ages
Adoption studies compare traits of adopted children
with those of their natural parents and their
adoptive parents
This is because:
Adoptive parents contribute greatly to the rearing
environment, but are genetically unrelated to the
children
The natural parents are genetically related to the
children, but play little or no role in rearing them
So, if adopted children are more similar to their
natural parents than to their adoptive parents, then
there is evidence for heredity’s influence
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