Behaviour

===Lecture Details===
Glenn Melvin; Week 3 MED1011; Medicine of the Mind
===Lecture Content===
Behaviour is the actions or reactions in response to a situation. Chronic disease incidence is increasing and knowledge of how human behaviour relates to these illnesses is improving. Behavioural risk factors are associated with the five leading causes of death in Australia. Goals of healthy behaviour are to promote and maintain health, to prevent and treat illness, to determine the behavioural correlates of illness, to improve the health care system and health policy.
Classical conditioning involves association of a stimulus with an event that evokes a response. Eventually the stimulus without the event will provoke a response (Pavlov's dog). 
Operant conditioning involves consequences of behaviour, which will determine whether it will be repeated. Reinforcement encourages repetition, punishment decreases.
Superstition is when reward/punishment is in close proximity to an independent behaviour. The behaviour unrelated to the reward is repeated/avoided in kind.
Observable behaviour is one that can be picked up by any of the five senses. Usually described by action words. Can be measured to inform health assessment. Can be measured with diaries, frequency, checklist, may include measurement of antecedents and outcome.
Reactions to illness can be physical <> emotional <> cognitive <> behavioural.
Illness behaviour is from a well person to a sick patient; abnormal illness behaviour is persistance of inappropriate or maladaptive modes of percieving or acting in relation to health after an individual has recieved an appropriate explanation (sick role when not needed, avoiding obligations.
Illness perceptions are more important than objective facts, combination of bodily experience, information from environment or previous experience; coping strategies can be cognitive, controllability, optimism, efficacy/self-efficacy, problem vs emotion focused coping.
===Readings===