Concept Of Risky Lifestyle Behavior, Sexual Health And Drug Addiction: An Analysis

The health belief model and barriers to healthy behavior

Task 1:

Using notes from lectures/independent research produce a 1250 word essay outlining the concept of risky lifestyle behavior with reference to the health belief model and barriers that prevent people engaging in healthy behaviour. The essay should also analyse and examine at least three different factors affecting behavior related to sexual health (e.g. the effect of upbringing on risky sexual behavior). In doing so the strengths and limitations of the research you present in your essay should be examined.

Task 2:

Using notes from lectures and independent research produce a 750 word essay that analyses the biological explanations behind drug addiction. Your essay should also define what drug addiction is. Ensure you choose at least two explanations and evaluate them.

Task 3:

Using notes from lectures and independent research produce a 500 word piece of writing that describes and evaluates at least two therapies or treatments.

The most common risky lifestyle behavior include behaviors contributing unintentional injuries, violence, sexual behaviors leading to unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, psychoactive drug use, using tobacco and unhealthy dietary behavior and inadequate physical activity which are common in most of the young generation individuals. The unintentional injuries or violence can lead to the domestic violence (Gerend & Shepherd, 2012). Inadequate physical activity and unhealthy dietary behaviors enhance the risk of obesity and cardiovascular disease along with some psychological disorders including depression. Alcohol and tobacco use can have fatal impacts upon individual’s life. One of the most common issues in teen age is unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases due to unprotected sex.

According to the health belief model, the perceived severity, susceptibility, benefits and modified variables as well as the perceived barriers contributes to planning action against any kind therapeutic plan against a health problem. Perceived susceptibility is individual’s opinion regarding the chance of getting a health issue. Perceived severity is the opinion about how serious the health issue and the consequences are. Perceived benefits include individual’s belief about the efficiency of recommended action to decrease the risk of impact (Ayele et al., 2012). Perceived barriers are important consideration for gaining the best possible success from the intervention. The modifying factors can have significant impact upon occurrence of disease.

According to the health belief model, the perceived barriers for engaging people with healthy behavior are lack of proper awareness about health behavior. For example, the lack of awareness about the sexual transmission disease and use of condom, the STDs like HIV, Hepatitis B, C are more likely to affect the individuals in rural areas. Alcohol consumption is another major issue which is mostly affects the young generation. Lack of health promotion and risk of experiencing the severity of the withdrawal symptoms which include anxiety, restlessness, irritability and temptation from others (Kim, Ahn & No, 2012).

Factors affecting sexual health

There are several factors affecting the sexual health related behavior. The community or neighborhood factors which are associated with high rate of violence, substance abuse are likely to have poor health outcomes. On the other hand, school factors, academic achievement can help youth to make healthy sexual life. The family factors including family factors, economic status of family, supportive and responsive parenting can be positive factors contributing towards healthy sexual behavior of youth. In the case of relationship factors, a good interaction and communication with sexual partner can help to enhance the healthy sexual behavior. In this context, healthy sexual behavior would have a positive impact towards the children, as parents would be aware of the protective factors which they could convey to their children (Scarinci et al., 2012).

Drug addiction is a specific habit of some people repetitively using the particular drug which enhances the risk of disease and associated social and personal issues. The drug addiction has three phases of drug addiction, initiation, maintenance and relapse.

 The Biological model depicts that, an individual can be most susceptible to addiction during initiation phase, if they have predisposed biological vulnerability. On the other hand, due to genetic vulnerability can be triggered by the environmental stressors like diathesis stress (Lippke, Nigg & Maddock, 2012).

According to the genetic explanation, many family studies have been showed that there is possibility of genetic transmission of addictive nature. However, it has also been seen that genetics is not the only cause for predisposing addiction. The genetic explanation indicates that some individuals are more likely to be addicted than other due to the genetic predisposition. If an individual have genetic predisposition, the individual is more likely to maintain his habit of drug use and getting addicted. In contrast, the biological predisposition is less likely to contribute in maintaining addiction (Murray, Farrington & Sekol, 2012).

According to the biological model, people having addiction lose control over their activities. Studies showed that addiction is long-lasting brain disease with complex factors. The drug/alcohol hijacks the pleasure or reward circuits in their brain and pushes the individual to seek more and more drug.  The biological model suggests that the neurobiological factors are important in maintaining the addiction. It can be explained with an example, while consuming nicotine, cocaine or alcohol, the compounds promotes the activity of reward and pleasure sites in brain including mesocorticolimbic dopamine pathway which stimulates the person to continuously seek for those drugs for pleasure. The same pathway, mesocorticolimbic dopamine pathway is involved in the relapse or reinforcement of addiction (Ersche et al., 2012).

Biological explanations behind drug addiction

In genetic explanation, it has been investigated that the neurotransmitter which is usually related to addiction is dopamine. In its normal activity, the spontaneously active cells in mesolimbic dopamine system release small amount of dopamine for maintaining stable mood status and helps to balance the control system of body and the reward reinforcement system. According to Elliott, Huizinga and Menard (2012)  nicotine has a significant effect upon be increased level of dopamine secretion. Individuals having a mutated inherited gene in mesolimbic dopamine pathway are more likely to develop and maintain addiction, as argued by (Gorwood et al., 2012).

It has been revealed that the opioid system in brain has a significant role in maintaining addictive behavior. This system secretes enkephalin and endorphins, two opioid neurotransmitters at the status of pleasure which is stimulated by nicotine, cocaine and other related drugs. It has also been analyzed that active smokers experience strong stimulation even when they see a packet of cigarette, it is done by the activation of ventral striatum which is the site of rewarding feeling.  It has also seen that long term consumption of alcohol interrupt the opioid system.

Another factor that motivates the addiction process is the experience of winning. Holmes (2012) found that, after experience of winning, dopamine and noradrenaline levels are raised which are released at excited or stressed status. Evaluating these models, dopamine Has been found to be linked with dependency and this information can be used in manufacturing drugs which reduces dopamine production.

Therapy or treatment is referred to the medical procedures which are used for lowering the symptoms and severity of any kind of physical or psychological disorder. Drug addiction can be seen as the health risk behavior which has a link with the psychological disorder. The therapies or treatment of the drug addiction include both the behavioral therapy which is based on the psychological treatment and the pharmacotherapy related to physical therapy. The primary goal of the drug addiction prevention treatment is to prevent the relapse of drug addiction and rehabilitation (McGregor & Bowen, 2012).

One treatment or therapy for the prevention of drug addiction is through the usage of medication for. This therapy sets the primary goal for preventing relapse, abstinence and rehabilitation. This therapy is useful at the initial stage of addiction for helping the individual suffering from chemical dependency and effects of withdrawal. The reduction of withdrawal effect and chemical dependency at the initial stage is known as the process of ‘detoxification. The medications which are used for detoxify varies within individual to individual (Connors et al., 2012). Individual having alcohol addiction can be treated with naltrexone which works by blocking the opioid receptors which is involved in the rewarding effects of consuming alcohol. Individuals having tobacco addiction are treated with bupropion and varenicline which helps in preventing the relapse of addiction. Acamprosate acts by reducing the long-lasting withdrawal symptoms including anxiety, insomnia and restlessness which induce the loss of cognitive thinking.

Therapies and treatments available for drug addiction

Another common and mostly used therapy of treating addiction includes behavioral therapies. It is psychological treatments which include counseling for modifying individual’s attitude and behavior, enhance healthy life skills. However, the effectiveness of this therapy has been shown to give the most promising result while used in a combination with the sedative and other medications specific for the particular kinds of medication. There are different types of behavioral therapies used effectively to treat the drug addiction. Sometimes patient is subjected to an entire program including different sessions of behavioral therapies. The program is established by the counselor through a person-centered care approach (Connors et al., 2012). The programs include:

Cognitive behavioral therapy- it helps patients to recognize their health risk behaviors and learn skills for avoiding these behaviors along with the awareness about the coping strategies

Multidimensional family therapy- It is planned for adolescents with drug addiction issues along with their family. The treatment aims to identify different stimulants for drug abuse patterns and based on which the plan is made for improving overall family functioning.

Motivational interviewing- It influences individual’s willingness for changing behavior and go one step ahead towards treatment, the therapy targets to improve the functioning of entire family.

 Motivational incentives- The positive reinforcement is targeted through this therapy for encouraging abstinence from drugs.

In spite of these twp therapeutic branches, the therapeutic communication, short term residential treatment, recovery housing can be implemented based on the stage of drug addiction of the patient.

Reference List

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Connors, G. J., DiClemente, C. C., Velasquez, M. M., & Donovan, D. M. (2012). Substance abuse treatment and the stages of change: Selecting and planning interventions. Guilford Press.

Elliott, D. S., Huizinga, D., & Menard, S. (2012). Multiple problem youth: Delinquency, substance use, and mental health problems. Springer Science & Business Media.

Ersche, K. D., Jones, P. S., Williams, G. B., Turton, A. J., Robbins, T. W., & Bullmore, E. T. (2012). Abnormal brain structure implicated in stimulant drug addiction. Science, 335(6068), 601-604.

Gerend, M. A., & Shepherd, J. E. (2012). Predicting human papillomavirus vaccine uptake in young adult women: Comparing the health belief model and theory of planned behavior. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 44(2), 171-180.

Gorwood, P., Le Strat, Y., Ramoz, N., Dubertret, C., Moalic, J. M., & Simonneau, M. (2012). Genetics of dopamine receptors and drug addiction.Human genetics, 131(6), 803-822.

Holmes, D. (2012). Prescription drug addiction: the treatment challenge. The Lancet, 379(9810), 17-18.

Kim, H. S., Ahn, J., & No, J. K. (2012). Applying the Health Belief Model to college students’ health behavior. Nutrition research and practice, 6(6), 551-558.

Lippke, S., Nigg, C. R., & Maddock, J. E. (2012). Health-promoting and health-risk behaviors: theory-driven analyses of multiple health behavior change in three international samples. International journal of behavioral medicine, 19(1), 1-13.

McGregor, I. S., & Bowen, M. T. (2012). Breaking the loop: oxytocin as a potential treatment for drug addiction. Hormones and behavior, 61(3), 331-339.

Murray, J., Farrington, D. P., & Sekol, I. (2012). Children’s antisocial behavior, mental health, drug use, and educational performance after parental incarceration: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Psychological bulletin, 138(2), 175.

Scarinci, I. C., Bandura, L., Hidalgo, B., & Cherrington, A. (2012). Development of a theory-based (PEN-3 and health belief model), culturally relevant intervention on cervical cancer prevention among Latina immigrants using intervention mapping. Health Promotion Practice, 13(1), 29-40.