Introduction to Health Psychology (FutureLearn)

On this free online course from the University of Padova, you’ll get to grips with the essentials of healthcare psychology – what psychology is and how it influences areas from policymaking to illness management.

You’ll learn about how to improve positive psychological behaviour, and how health psychology impacts healthcare in developing countries.

What topics will you cover?

- What is health?

- Healthy and risk behaviours: how to improve healthy behaviours and how to discourage risky behaviours

- Symptoms perception and attribution

- Illness perception; coping with illness

- Illness burden for patients and caregivers

- Health psychology in emerging countries

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

- Explore the broad domain of health psychology, ranging from policy making to psychological reaction to illness

- Develop the skills needed in coping with medical illness from a psychological point of view

- Reflect on how to break negative news to patients

- Collaborate with others in building effective health interventions

- Identify the main techniques for stress management in medical illness

- Explore specific aspects of health psychology including e-health and health psychology in emerging countries