Case Study



Case Study

Introduction

In the given case of Sarah, the patient has major physiological and psychological complaints. She is unable to perform daily routine activates because of her arthritis and depression. In the report, her problem is described through psychological paradigm.

1. Psychological Factor

For the case of Sarah psychological factor selected is 'stress or coping'. The case under study demonstrates that Sarah has been facing a number of severe stresses provoking life situation along with her medical complaint.

Anxiety is an upsetting and troubling emotion. At times, reasons of anxiety are not apparently clear. Physiologically anxiety and fear produce similar responses. Repeatedly encountering anxiety individual learns helplessness. He learns that he has very little or no control over his life. Such learning leads to stress and ultimately results in depression.

Stress is a physiological state caused by psychological reasons and results in physical and psychological inability. Situation, people or thing can produce stressful situation. One may respond to stress physiologically and behaviorally. In day to day world stress may have these consequences, Physiological: In a stressful situation body undergoes some physiological changes. Behavioral: one may alter his behavior in a stressful situation in order to handle stress. Coping Skills: Successful of unsuccessful trials to deal with stress.

Holmes and Rahe (1967) designed a scale, the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRSS). The scale gives rate to different life events causing stress and giving numeric value to those events. Consent of scale rate is fairly high (Holmes and Masuda, 1974).

Researchers suggest that those who score high on the stress scale are more likely to experience physical or psychological issues after one or two years (Rahe and Arthur, 1978). Probably, stress lowers the functioning of the immune system, making person easily prone to illnesses. Hence, Sarah is at a high risk of other psychological and physical distress because of her stress.

Transactional model of Cox and Mackay (1976) proves that stress is because an active transaction among person and environment. One's cognitive assessment is crucial to this model. How a person perceives demands made by others on him or her and ability to meet those demands. Stress results when there are demands outnumber perceived ability. A person may suppose that the requirement made by others is beyond his capabilities. Self-esteem is defined as the repute of an individual for himself of herself. Low self-esteem is the signal of feeling unimportant. High self-esteem shows unrealistic persona and expectations from oneself. Moderate level of self-esteem is accompanying with psychological well- being (Coopersmith, 1968).

Rotter (1996) first suggested the model of locus of control. Locus of control relates life events to, how they are perceived. A person is either internally or externally attributive. Those

who are internally attributed perceived control over their life whereas; externals blame other people and environmental factors. Johnson and Sarason (1978) discovered that person who has external attribution style is more inclined to anxiety and depression.

Kobasa (1979) administered a questionnaire on 600 managers, acquiring to list illnesses and stressful situations they ...