An evidence-based patient-centered method makes the biopsychosocial model scientific.
OBJECTIVE
To review the scientific status of the biopsychosocial (BPS) model and to propose a way to improve it.


CONCLUSIONS
Engel's BPS model added patients' psychological and social health concerns to the highly successful biomedical model. He proposed that the BPS model could make medicine more scientific, but its use in education, clinical care, and, especially, research remains minimal. Many aver correctly that the present model cannot be defined in a consistent way for the individual patient, making it untestable and non-scientific. This stems from not obtaining relevant BPS data systematically, where one interviewer obtains the same information another would. Recent research by two of the authors has produced similar patient-centered interviewing methods that are repeatable and elicit just the relevant patient information needed to define the model at each visit. We propose that the field adopt these evidence-based methods as the standard for identifying the BPS model.


CONCLUSIONS
Identifying a scientific BPS model in each patient with an agreed-upon, evidence-based patient-centered interviewing method can produce a quantum leap ahead in both research and teaching.


CONCLUSIONS
A scientific BPS model can give us more confidence in being humanistic. In research, we can conduct more rigorous studies to inform better practices.
Departments of Medicine and Psychiatry, Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, East Lansing, MI, USA. robert.smith@ht.msu.edu
Robert C
RC
Smith
Auguste H
AH
Fortin
Francesca
F
Dwamena
Richard M
RM
Frankel
D001524:Behavioral Medicine / Q000193:education; D055317:Evidence-Based Practice; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D008960:Models, Psychological; D018802:Patient-Centered Care / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D013598:Systems Theory; D000078329:Workforce