The objective of the course is to acquire the theories and principal intervention techniques of Clinical Psychology in social-healthcare and community settings.

It intends to provide students with the tools and theoretical and methodological skills to operate in such settings in order to promote:

1.     wellness, both for users and operators, in healthcare settings

2.     communication improvement between health professionals and patients, thus promoting an improved therapeutic compliance and behaviors favoring quality of life also in the presence of an organic pathology.

The principal subject matters of the course will be distributed as follows:

Lessons 1-4: the first part of the program will be dedicated to a brief introduction on the integration of clinical psychology in healthcare settings, describing the passage from the biomedical model to the determinants of the bio-psycho-social models of health and disease. We will proceed with the theme of psychological intervention supporting medical treatments.

Lessons 5-9: The second part of the program will focus on the psychological impact of the disease: psychological reactions and adaptation to the disease, the role of cognitive processes in treatments, the components of pain, recognizing the psycho-social needs of patients with a medical condition, Doctor-patient communication (non-verbal communication and language, communication of bad news, communication and informed consent), Principal tools of psychological assessment.

Lessons 10-14: The third part of the program will deal with psychological interventions in Oncology and other departments, with inter-disciplinary intervention, with the management of terminal patients, with the burden associated with caregiving in case of chronic diseases and with the Team and burnout syndrome (physical, psychic and behavioral symptoms of burnout, prevention and measurement)

The student will have to demonstrate:

-  Knowledge and understanding: mastery of the knowledge of how a clinical psychologist operates in the healthcare setting: being able to recognize the cognitive and emotional processes associated with forms of distress

-  Applying knowledge and understanding: being able to recognize and distinguish psychopathological elements, and having learned the principal tools to understand the difficult adaptation to an organic pathology and to a possible reactive psychopathological context

-  Communication skills: being able to identify the processes of verbal, non-verbal communication, being able to communicate with users in the different phases of the disease and being able to describe the basic psychopathological phenomena

-  Making judgements: being able to use knowledge and concepts to organize clinical reasoning

-  Learning skills: at the end of the course the students will become independent in reading the clinical material, in understanding a psychopathological phenomenon also reactive to a medical condition and in the communication both between users and operators and with patients in the different phases of the disease.

The teaching material prepared by the lecturer in addition to recommended textbooks (such as for instance slides, lecture notes, exercises, bibliography) and communications from the lecturer specific to the course can be found inside the Moodle platform › blended.uniurb.it

Activities will be carried out by experts in the subject

role playing

seminar with experts

Teaching

Frontal lessons

Discussion of clinical cases

Seminars with experts

Innovative teaching methods

In order to monitor the level of learning, written or role-playing educational tests will be carried out.

The schedule and methods will be communicated to students during class and through the platform blended.

Seminar with experts

Course books

Clerici, C.A., Veneroni, L. " La psicologia clinica in ospedale. Consulenza e modelli di intervento", Il Mulino, Milano, 2014

Vito A. (a cura di) " Psicologi in ospedale. Percorsi operativi per la cura globale di persone", Franco Angeli, Milano 2014 (No capitolo XI )

Bara, Bruno G. (a cura di), "il corpo malato. L'intervento psicologico", Raffaello Cortina, Milano, 2023 capitoli IV, X, XIV, XVIII

Assessment

Preparation will be verified by means of a final written exam focusing on the bibliography and the slides integrating the texts, that will be made available on the platform.

The written exam will consist of two parts:

-  10 multiple choice close-ended questions

-      2 open-ended questions

Subject of evaluation will be the level of knowledge and detail of the various topics, the use of appropriate language, the critical elaboration skills.

On a methodological level, subject of evaluation will be the ability to identify situation resources and criticality, being able to identify the assessment tools in the different cases and being able to demonstrate procedural knowledge.

Disability and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students who have registered their disability certification or SLD certification with the Inclusion and Right to Study Office can request to use conceptual maps (for keywords) during exams.

To this end, it is necessary to send the maps, two weeks before the exam date, to the course instructor, who will verify their compliance with the university guidelines and may request modifications.

Teaching

To give students and non attending students the opportunity to understand throught indipendent study what is done during the lessons,  we recommend using all the materials included in the Blendend platform (videos, exercises, supplementary material, example of exam questions ) which are particulary useful for full understanding of the contents of the program.

Course books

Clerici, C.A., Veneroni, L. " La psicologia clinica in ospedale. Consulenza e modelli di intervento", Il Mulino, Milano, 2014

Vito A. (a cura di) " Psicologi in ospedale. Percorsi operativi per la cura globale di persone", Franco Angeli, Milano 2014 (No capitolo XI )

Bara, Bruno G. (a cura di), "il corpo malato. L'intervento psicologico", Raffaello Cortina, Milano, 2023 capitoli IV, X, XIV, XVIII

Assessment

Preparation will be verified by means of a final written exam focusing on the bibliography and the slides integrating the texts, that will be made available on the platform.

The written exam will consist of two parts:

-  10 multiple choice close-ended questions

-      2 open-ended questions

Subject of evaluation will be the level of knowledge and detail of the various topics, the use of appropriate language, the critical elaboration skills.

On a methodological level, subject of evaluation will be the ability to identify situation resources and criticality, being able to identify the assessment tools in the different cases and being able to demonstrate procedural knowledge.

Disability and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students who have registered their disability certification or SLD certification with the Inclusion and Right to Study Office can request to use conceptual maps (for keywords) during exams.

To this end, it is necessary to send the maps, two weeks before the exam date, to the course instructor, who will verify their compliance with the university guidelines and may request modifications.