Psychosocial Essay
Explain how sociological and psychological insights help nurses to understand health lifestyles such as smoking
Tobacco was first imported into UK in 1565 from America and increased from 2 thousand to 38 million pounds by the end of the 17s century. In the 1800 tobacco was manufactured in the UK, which became more easily available and affordable to people and remained British lifestyle choice ever since. A cigarette contains about 4000 different chemicals that can damage cells and systems of the body BBC HEALTH (2012). According to the NHS statistics 90% of lung cancer is caused by smoking and smoking caused about 80,000 deaths a year. Even though there is a negative link associated to tobacco, smoking became dominant in British culture costing NHS and taxpayers billions of pounds. It is also known that tobacco taxes became a major contribution to the economy. In order to reduce and educate the amount of smokers and potential smokers the government has implement law to ban smoking in public places which became live in 2007 and free smoking pack were giving out to educate people. This essay will identify and discuss how sociological and psychological approaches can help nurses to understand why people smoke.
Three Sociological ideas
Cultural Factors
When discussing sociological factors in relation to why people smoke, culture can be included into this discussion. According to Clarke (2010) “people lifestyles are shaped by their traditional values and socially accepted patterns of behaviour found within the communities in which individual and families live in” Culture have a major impact on how we behave, dress, talk, the way we interact with people and habits that we pick up. In many societies smoking is widely spread and it is a source of relaxation and it is a means of socialisation for individual who indulge in the habit. The western society cultural norm may influence youth to smoke, factors such as peer pressure or parents smoking at home. Recent
Tobacco was first imported into UK in 1565 from America and increased from 2 thousand to 38 million pounds by the end of the 17s century. In the 1800 tobacco was manufactured in the UK, which became more easily available and affordable to people and remained British lifestyle choice ever since. A cigarette contains about 4000 different chemicals that can damage cells and systems of the body BBC HEALTH (2012). According to the NHS statistics 90% of lung cancer is caused by smoking and smoking caused about 80,000 deaths a year. Even though there is a negative link associated to tobacco, smoking became dominant in British culture costing NHS and taxpayers billions of pounds. It is also known that tobacco taxes became a major contribution to the economy. In order to reduce and educate the amount of smokers and potential smokers the government has implement law to ban smoking in public places which became live in 2007 and free smoking pack were giving out to educate people. This essay will identify and discuss how sociological and psychological approaches can help nurses to understand why people smoke.
Three Sociological ideas
Cultural Factors
When discussing sociological factors in relation to why people smoke, culture can be included into this discussion. According to Clarke (2010) “people lifestyles are shaped by their traditional values and socially accepted patterns of behaviour found within the communities in which individual and families live in” Culture have a major impact on how we behave, dress, talk, the way we interact with people and habits that we pick up. In many societies smoking is widely spread and it is a source of relaxation and it is a means of socialisation for individual who indulge in the habit. The western society cultural norm may influence youth to smoke, factors such as peer pressure or parents smoking at home. Recent
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