Overview

Models of health and illness; biomedical, social-environmental and biopsychosocial models of disability; illness perceptions and the self-regulation of illness; the role of assistive technology; coping; pain; cognitive, emotional and behavioural models of illness outcomes; families and disease; carer strain and gain; assessing patient outcomes, mood and QoL; dr-patient communication and healthcare decision-making; developing and evaluating interventions

Learning Outcomes

• Demonstrate an advanced level of understanding of current theories of responses to illness through critical evaluation of competing explanations of illness and disability (cultural, social, individual, biomedical), and place these within contemporary health psychology.

• Demonstrate how theory is applied in psychological assessments common to the practice of health psychology by means of evaluation published intervention studies in terms of their processes and outcomes.

• Interpret and demonstrate understanding both orally and in writing (both assessed) of empirical findings from correlational, prospective or 
interventional studies in terms of their relevance to a) assessment b) theory and c) 
healthcare practice and intervention

• Review and sythesise empirical evidence so as to generate a proposal for a theoretically derived and evidence-based intervention targeted at patients, their informal carers, or health care practitioners.

• Understand the principles underlying biomedical and biopsychosocial explanations of illness and how these underpin theories of symptom perception, interpretation and coping response