Clinical health psychology concerns the set of educational, scientific and professional contributions of the clinical psychological disciplines for the promotion and maintenance of health and the prevention and treatment of disease. The psychology of disease risk prevention and the psychology of health promotion represent essential activities of clinical health psychology. The training objectives of the course concern the acquisition of adequate knowledge with respect to the potential of health prevention and promotion perspectives and the necessary operational methods capable of providing adequate responses to requests in different contexts, intervening in collaboration with the hospital and local structures of the national health service, public and private bodies and local institutions. The teaching is aimed at promoting the development of clinical-psychological knowledge and skills based on the current orientations of clinical health psychology, which involve supporting the prevention of the state of illness, interventions for the culture and promotion of health and the valorisation of the person, through the promotion of psychological and relational development.

At the end of the course the student:

You will obtain the knowledge necessary to operate in the field of clinical health psychology and the skills relating to specific assessments and interventions. They will have gained knowledge relating to the different topics covered by the lessons and will understand the connection between theoretical approaches, research results, evaluation tools and intervention planning. He will be able to compare different approaches, highlighting strengths and weaknesses of different theoretical orientations. The student will acquire the skills to intervene with specific psychological-relational tools on health promotion and make use of specific prevention interventions in different institutional and non-institutional contexts (hospital, local services, family, school, community, etc.).

Course aims to present the theoretical and empirical bases of evidence-based prevention programs and health promotion interventions. Methodological options and intervention tools with effective results will be introduced, to understand their use in clinical setting, as well as the cognitive skills for the evaluation of specific risk factors and protective factors, according to the guidelines of American Psychological Association for prevention in psychology. Course will also focus on the analysis and improvement of health protection systems; identification of  causes and diagnostic correlates for health and disease; development of practices for psychological growth and the benefit of communities, groups, families and individuals; post-traumatic growth; different strategies for maintaining and promoting health and preventing and treating disease.

Health policies that support the health and well-being of  entire population: will be explored in depth multidisciplinary team work in  different areas in which the clinical psychologist operates.

1. Larry C. James, William O'Donohue, Jeanne Wendel. Clinical Health Psychology, Springer, 2022

The evaluation criteria are based on:

- acquisition of the main concepts and theoretical approaches of clinical health psychology;

- clarity of presentation;

- competence in use of specialist vocabulary

Contexts of health psychology

Biopsychosocial model

Health-related quality of life

Wellbeing and positive psychology

Representations of health and illness

Emotions, emotional regulation and health

Influence of personality

Personal resources and health

Health behaviors: reference models and theories

Stress and coping

Lifestyles and risky behaviors

Adherence and self-protective behaviors

Psycho-neuro-endocrine-immunology

Psychosocial risk factors

Health and positive functioning throughout life

Resilience

Health and positive and active aging

Quality of care and communication with patient in somatic pathologies

Community interventions for health promotion

Communication campaigns on health risk

Clinical psychology of occupational health

Psychological intervention in emergency and bereavement situations