Psychology of Health
PSS340
Overview
Warning: Mature Content
This unit contains mature content including Adult Themes, Drug use and Sex / Sexual References and may not be suitable for some students. Any student under the age of 16 who would like to enrol in this unit must first complete a Parental Consent Form.
Level of study: What does Undergraduate Level 3 mean?
Undergraduate Level 3
EFTSL: What does EFTSL mean?
0.125
Delivery Method: What does delivery method mean?
Fully Online
Prerequisites: What are the prerequisites?
Duration:
13 weeks
Description
This unit introduces the basis of health and illness beliefs and their interrelatedness to issues such as substance use and abuse, stress, exercise, obesity and heart disease, pain, gender and sexually transmitted diseases.
Please note: Assessment values are indicative only; details will be advised at the start of the unit.
Prerequisites
Mandatory prerequisites
You must have successfully completed the following unit(s) before starting this unit:
- PSS110 — Introduction to Psychology 1
- PSS120 — Introduction to Psychology 2
- STA102 — Foundations of Statistics (Previously STA15)
If you have completed equivalent study at another university, please contact a Student Advisor for advice.
Assessment
- Assignments — (40%-60%)
- Invigilated Exam — (30%-50%)
- Quiz — (10%-20%)
Learning Outcomes
The Psychology of Health aims to investigate major issues in society today as they relate to health and community wellbeing. Students will be expected to understand the assumptions of health psychology, and become familiar with the theory, methods, and practice of health psychology. Further aims of the unit include health beliefs and illness cognitions, and become conversant with many of the major health issues affecting society, such as smoking, alcohol, pain, stress, eating, cancer and other diseases. Other aims include an understanding of the role of health professionals, epidemiology of disease in the community, and an appreciation of the quality of life.
At the completion of this unit students will have developed these generic skills:
- analytical and problem solving skills
- understanding of research methodology, including ethics
- writing in a clear, scientific manner, including the critical evaluation of research
- ability to work independently
- ability to tackle unfamiliar problems.
Topics
This unit addresses the following topics.
| Number | Topic |
|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction to health psychology |
| 2 | Health inequalities |
| 3 | Health related behaviours |
| 4 | Predicting health behaviour |
| 5 | Reducing risk of disease |
| 6 | Population approaches to public health |
| 7 | Symptom perception |
| 8 | The consultation |
| 9 | Stress and Illness moderators |
| 10 | Impact of illness |
| 11 | Improving health |
Study Resources
This unit is delivered using the following methods and materials:
Instructional Methods
- Chat rooms
- Discussion Forum/Discussion Board
- Online Quizzes/Tests
- Podcasting/Lecture capture
- Standard Media
- Web links
Print based materials
- Welcome Letter
Online materials
- Printable format materials
Textbook information for this unit is currently being updated and will be available soon. Please check back regularly for updates. Alternatively, visit the Unibooks website and enter the unit details to search for available textbooks.
Relevant Courses
This unit is a core requirement in the following courses:
This unit is part of a major, minor, stream or specialisation in the following courses:
This unit may be eligible for credit towards other courses:
- Many undergraduate courses on offer through OUA include 'open elective' where any OUA unit can be credited to the course. You need to check the Award Requirements on the course page for the number of allowed open electives and any level limitations.
- In other cases, the content of this unit might be relevant to a course on offer through OUA or elsewhere. In order to receive credit for this unit in the course you will need to supply the provider institution with a copy of the Unit Profile in the approved format, which you can download here. Note that the Unit Profile is set at the start of the year, and if textbooks change this may not match the Unibooks textbook list.
