Cardiac Psychology

About the course

The course aims at increasing knowledge about the psychosocial aspects of cardiovascular disease. The course content will cover causes of mental illness in cardiovascular disease and psychological treatments in this setting. Risk factor management is a major challenge for both primary and secondary prevention and it is, to a large extent, behavioural. Several models for how behaviour can be influenced will be discussed during the course. Some cardiac conditions have special behavioural challenges which will also be discussed in the course. Finally, inequalities when it comes to cardiac risk factors and cardiac rehabilitation, e.g. due to sex, socioeconomic status and mental health, will be covered in this course.

This course is a free-standing course that could also be elective for the physician, psychologist and physiotherapist programmes. The course can also serve as supplementary training for professionals in medicine, caring science, public health and psychology.

The course is part of the European university network ENLIGHT's course catalogue.

Outline for distance course: The course is delivered online via the platforms Zoom, Studium and regular e-mail. The course includes two to three hours of lectures two to three times per week and two hours of mandatory group work or seminars two times every week. Communication between student and teachers will be done online via the platforms mentioned above. In order to participate in this distance course you need access to a computer with a web-browser and a strong enough internet connection for the purpose. The computer must have a camera (internal or external) and a headset with microphone and earphones attached to it. Camera, microphone and earphones must work at each synchronous course-session. Examination consists of a written assignment (online), participation in mandatory seminars and a group task. The instructions for the examining activities will be displayed on Studium.