Expectation for the health psychologist/certified psychologist in the medical field; in case of caring non-communicable diseases

Abstract

The Japanese national health insurance expenses have been increasing yearly and reached 40.8 trillion yen in 2014. A significant reason for this increase is the increasing number of patients suffering from non-communicable diseases, such as metabolic syndrome and diabetes mellitus. Health guidance and guidelines for medical treatment involving psychological approaches, such as applied behavior change, have been proposed to solve this situation. However, most medical professionals have insufficient training in conducting psychological approaches, which might be efficacious. However, many issues, including analyzing the data on specific health guidance methods and daily practices for metabolic syndrome/diabetes treatment, as well as elucidating the current status and problems of treatment, must be addressed. Therefore, we evaluated the psychological approaches appropriate for metabolic syndrome/diabetes treatment. The results indicated the possibility of involving health psychologists and certified psychologists in medical treatment.