Extending the Biopsychosocial Model to Orthopaedics

Question: Discuss about the Extending the Biopsychosocial Model to Orthopaedics. Answer: The biopsychosocial approach attributes to a broader perspective in understanding the human health, illness in conjunction with the healthcare delivery in a holistic manner. It acknowledges the fact that the causes, manifestations as well as consequences pertaining to specific disease conditions and circumstances of health and wellness is generally determined by virtue of complex and dynamic, variable and intricate interactions between various biological, psychological and social factors. Occurrence of the various clinical situations within the natural systems continuum and their suitable interpretations underpin the major application of the biopsychosocial approach. This approach may be effectively utilized in cases of the patients recovering from serious surgical interventions where the role of the clinician plays an integral role to apply it in the clinical practice. In this context the factors that predict the recovery of the diseased individuals become very much crucial to devis e a suitable treatment modality ensuring positive outcomes in the persons in distress. Numerous diverse factors account for the multifaceted responses that contribute towards recovery outcomes in the patients. Empirical researches offer an insight into such matters. Several studies have identified emotional health as a vital factor affecting the outcome of many common orthopaedic surgeries. Poor emotional health comprising of depression, anxiety, poor social support in addition to poor coping up mechanisms have been held responsible for poor functional outcomes. Irrespective of the presence of modern sophisticated surgical techniques poor to suboptimal functional outcomes have been correlated with unsatisfactory emotional health in cases of a variety of orthopaedic specialties including trauma care, fracture repair, spine surgery, sports related surgery, rotator cuff repair, total knee replacement, total hip replacement, and surgery of the hand and upper extremities (Ayers, Franklin Ring, 2013). Another study relevant to the assessment of return to work outcome following surgery in workers with traumatic occupational hand injury by virtue of their findings suggest that for the acute stages of recovery, pain, severity of injury, self efficacy and living alone are significant prognostic variables for delayed return to work outcome. Further analysis identified locus of control and negative affect as other crucial predictors of the delayed return to work outcome (Roesler, Glendon OCallaghan, 2013). The variation in pain perceptions apart from the prevalence of the severity of pain were compared in cases of men and women in the course of the first year following cardiac surgery. The results of the study indicated that gender distinctions in pain persist up to one year after the conduct of cardiac surgery. Therefore definite strategies pertinent to gender oriented pain management and education both in pre as well as post surgery condition might account for harbori ng better pain outcomes in the concerned individuals (Bjrnnes et al., 2016). Further the biopsychosocial perspective has been established in studies that examined the post surgical alterations in pain prevalent among the endometrial cancer patients in connection with the degree of severity to which factors such as emotional distress and inflammatory and regulatory cytokines levels are linked to pain. Conclusions drawn from the study revealed that anxiety, depression and IL-6 accentuated the pain during recovery phase following surgery and culminate in gynaecological malignancy. Levels of distress in conjunction with interpersonal levels of IL-6 corroborated in tracking the temporal changes related to pain (Honerlaw et al., 2016). Thus in consideration of the factors discussed in the preceding sections, the hypothesis that these intervening factors act on alleviating the prevalent condition at post surgery period in patients may be proposed by means of the biopsychosocial perspective may be considered as the alternative hypothesis (HA). Contrarily the Null hypothesis (H0) may be stated as that the intervening factors occurring after the surgery period do not account for recovery in the patients. Hence reference to the biopsychosocial aspect might be effective in either accepting or rejecting the Null Hypothesis to determine the efficacy of the factors involved in the process. References Ayers, D. C., Franklin, P. D., Ring, D. C. (2013). The role of emotional health in functional outcomes after orthopaedic surgery: extending the biopsychosocial model to orthopaedics. J Bone Joint Surg Am, 95(21), e165. Bjrnnes, A. K., Parry, M., Lie, I., Fagerland, M. W., Watt?Watson, J., Rusten, T., Leegaard, M. (2016). Pain experiences of men and women after cardiac surgery. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 25(19-20), 3058-3068. Honerlaw, K. R., Rumble, M. E., Rose, S. L., Coe, C. L., Costanzo, E. S. (2016). Biopsychosocial predictors of pain among women recovering from surgery for endometrial cancer. Gynecologic oncology, 140(2), 301-306. Roesler, M. L., Glendon, A. I., OCallaghan, F. V. (2013). Recovering from traumatic occupational hand injury following surgery: a biopsychosocial perspective. Journal of occupational rehabilitation, 23(4), 536-546.