no information available
The field of health psychology has exploded in the last decade due tprogress identifying physiological mechanisms by which psychological, social, and behavioral factors can put peoples health and well-being at risk In addition, development of accessible methods for measurement of key physiological parameters such as hormonal function have made the inclusion of physiological outcomes attractive tresearchers whhave traditionally focused solely on psychosocial variables This desire tinclude biological assessments as additional outcome variables is further influenced by strong interest of key funding agencies, such as NIH, in multi-method research proposals that consider an integrated, biopsychosocial approach tevaluation of psychosocial phenomena Despite the growing enthusiasm for integrating biological measures with psychosocial assessment, most psychologists are not well-trained in physiology and are confused about when, how, and which physiological systems should be incorporated intresearch projects This handbook therefore provides thorough, state-of-the-art, and user-friendly coverage of basic techniques for measurement of physiological variables in health psychology research It is designed tserve as a primary reference source for researchers and students interested in expanding their research tconsider a biopsychosocial approach Chapters addressing key physiological measuresáhave been written by international experts with an eye towards documenting essential information that must be considered in order taccurately and reliably measure biological samples The book is not intended tbe a lab manual of specific biomedical techniques, nor is it intended tprovide extensive physiological or anatomical information Rather, it takesthe approach most useful for a non-specialist whseeks guidance on how and when tcollect biological measures but whwill have the actual samples assayed elsewhere The handbook can be thought of as a primer or a gateway book for researchers new tthe area of physiological measurement and for readers whwould like tbetter understand the meaning of physiological measures they encounter in research reports
