Last modified: 31 Jul 2023 11:19
This course aims to explore the psychological side of illness, disability and dying. Students will learn how symptoms are interpreted and responded to, how risk is perceived, how individuals live with chronic conditions and about end of life and bereavement.
| Study Type | Postgraduate | Level | 5 |
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| Term | Second Term | Credit Points | 15 credits (7.5 ECTS credits) |
| Campus | Aberdeen | Sustained Study | No |
| Co-ordinators |
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This course covers four topic areas:
1: Becoming Ill. You will learn about models of risk and symptom perception and about the factors that influence how we respond to symptoms.
2: Interactions with Healthcare. You will learn about the importance of Dr-Patient communication to key health behaviours such as adherence and screening. You will learn about the impact of hospitalization and how psychology can be used to prepare patients for medical procedures to improve the experience of being in hospital and the outcomes from those procedures.
3: Living with a Chronic Illness. You will learn about models of disability and pain and how they can be used to help people manage their chronic health condition(s). You will learn about self-management of chronic illness and the role of informal caregiving and social support. This module will also introduce you to those chronic health conditions that are of public health significance, e.g. diabetes, insomnia, cardiovascular and respiratory conditions.
4: End of Life and Bereavement. You will learn about quality of life and how it can be measured. You will learn about the impact of bereavement on health and wellbeing.
The course will be composed of structured teaching sessions, guided independent study and experiential learning. Activities in class/ at home will be supported by experiential tasks designed to support your understanding of theory and its application and to foster an ability to take the perspective of a person living with a chronic health condition. You will be expected to actively participate in activities and will be given the opportunity to pursue your own developing interests, e.g. you may have a developing interest in a particular health condition, for example, the management of chronic pain and you will be encouraged to take that health condition and think about how all relevant aspects of the course pertain to it.
Information on contact teaching time is available from the course guide.
| Assessment Type | Summative | Weighting | 60 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Assessment Weeks | Feedback Weeks | |||
| Feedback |
Chronic Illness Infographic (60%). Students will be randomly assigned a chronic health condition and will design an infographic that: gives an overview of the condition, explains how changes in behaviour can facilitate self-management (identifying and explaining specific behaviour change techniques) and summarises one study from the literature that has demonstrated positive effects of behaviour change in the context of your allocated condition. The infographic will be designed for a particular target audience. |
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| Knowledge Level | Thinking Skill | Outcome |
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| Assessment Type | Summative | Weighting | 40 | |
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| Assessment Weeks | 6 | Feedback Weeks | 8 | |
| Feedback |
Students will be given a detailed medication regimen and will be asked to adhere to that regimen (using coloured sweets or chocolates suitable for their individual consumption) for two weeks. They then provide a focussed theory based report (1500 words) on the barriers / difficulties they personally encountered and provide evidenced based suggestions for an intervention to address those barriers to adherence |
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| Knowledge Level | Thinking Skill | Outcome |
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There are no assessments for this course.
| Knowledge Level | Thinking Skill | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Factual | Understand | 1. Models of risk and symptom perception and the factors that influence how people respond to symptoms |
| Factual | Understand | 3. The factors that influence the self-management of key chronic health conditions and the role of informal caregiving. |
| Conceptual | Analyse | 4. The concept of quality of life. |
| Procedural | Understand | 2. The role of communication in healthcare |
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