Pathways to well-being: Untangling the causal relationships among biopsychosocial variables

Abstract

This multidisciplinary article carefully explores interrelationships among biological, psychological, and social factors of the currently popular biopsychosocial (BPS) model and presents a new model: the BPS-Pathways model.

The Biopsychosocial Actor in the Contexts of Health and Human Services Informatics

“…The BSP actor inherits the concepts of mind and body, and activities towards objects from the HCM metaphor. However, the main tenets of the HCM metaphor − consciousness, corporeality and situationality − are replaced by those of psychological, biological and social determinants of the BPS model [4][5][6].…”

“…In 1977 Engel presented the biopsychosocial (BPS) model to broaden restrictions of the dominating biomedical model [4]. The BPS model inherits its holistic, multilevel ontology, and epistemological and methodological essence from general systems theory [5]. The abstraction of the nested organization of micro, meso, and macro levels of natural systems is the basis for scientific research of the BPS model.…”

“…The abstraction of the nested organization of micro, meso, and macro levels of natural systems is the basis for scientific research of the BPS model. The holistic structure of the BPS model with functionalistic properties is of use also in making every day encounters of cure and care more humane [5][6].…”

A Qualitative Study Exploring Well-Being and the Potential Impact of Work-Related Stress Among Commercial Airline Pilots

“…Recent studies demonstrate how interrelationships among these factors can be investigated. Karunamuni et al (2020) propose an updated theoretical model: the biopsychosocial pathways model, which considers potential pathways between the individual pillars (biological, psychological, and social), and attempts to explain how these pathways can contribute to subjective well-being and objective physical health outcomes.…”

Biopsychosocial Processes of Health and Disease During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…This selective review highlights the importance of the biopsychosocial model in optimizing the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although this model has been criticized as being too vague, insufficiently specific on how the three main factors of the model interact, and inadequately considering an individual's subjective/personal experiences (e.g., (33)), the biopsychosocial model remains a valuable alternative to the biomedical model it intended to expand upon (34). In addition, models focusing on social and structural determinants of health (e.g., as proposed by the World Health Organization) could be considered as additional perspectives on the COVID-19 pandemic because they are more explicit about macro-social factors.…”