Research Streams and Keywords
"What are the boundaries of health psychology?"
Individuals, groups, communities, and populations
The research conducted at GEPPS/UFS caters to a diverse audience, encompassing adult individuals of all genders, socioeconomic backgrounds, and those belonging to various clinical condition groups, alongside healthy individuals who may pl as control samples with or without specific diseases. Furthermore, in recent times, there has been a growing focus on conducting studies involving young adults in the transitional phase from adolescence to adulthood, as well as studies involving adolescents. While studies involving elderly individuals and children are not currently in progress, they remain an integral part of the Lab's overarching interests.
1: Determinants and Psychological Mediators of the Health-Illness Process
This research stream aims to assess the role of psychological variables in health across various outcomes and theoretical or empirical models. Commonly studied subjects include Common Mental Disorders, especially anxiety disorders, depression, and phobias. Other variables may also be considered but are always linked to these outcomes. The foundational theories for investigating this field encompass stress, coping, problem-solving, and constructs related to adaptability. We pay special attention to theoretical models of psychology for specific illnesses such as Lupus, Cardiovascular Diseases, Cancers, Rheumatic Diseases, Dermatological conditions, and Pain.
Keywords: Health Psychology; Population Health; Mental Health; Health Behaviors; Individual Differences; Mediator; Moderator; Health Beliefs; Rumination; Worry; Metacognition; Attention; Memory; Activities of Daily Living; Caregiver Health; Self-esteem; Self-efficacy; Self-concept; Resilience; Perceived Controllability; Personality Profiles and Typologies; Big Five Model.
2: Health Psychology, Psychological Adjustment, and Adaptation Mechanisms to Adversities
Within the framework of understanding how specific psychological variables operate in the context of health and illness, we aim to develop psychological models for predicting risk, illness onset, exacerbation, recovery, and mortality across various outcomes. This applies to chronic non-communicable diseases, viral crises, and the daily adjustment of individuals. The goal is to comprehend the psychological factors that either protect or make individuals more vulnerable to developing health-related conditions, while others remain functional.
Keywords: stress; Coping; self-harm behaviors; Suicide; Non-Suicidal Self-Injury; Adaptive Capacity; Psychological Adjustment; Cognitivism; Pandemics; COVID-19; Cognitive Processing; Morbidity; Mortality; Injury; Disease; Mental Disorders; Patients; Clinical Conditions; Terminal Illnesses; Palliative Care; Organ Donation; Accidents; Fatalities; Death; Trauma.
3: Quantitative Methods in Health Psychology
Our focus is on investigating the role of psychological variables in health and determining the most effective ways to derive insights from different types of variable distributions, whether they are metric or non-metric, always with a focus on the intersection of physical and mental health. Our primary methods involve multivariate analyses and statistical modeling. For those interested in statistics, this represents a second-level knowledge, which can be acquired through strong intrinsic motivation within the GEPPS/UFS environment.
Keywords: Psychometrics; Multivariate Analysis; Predictive Models; Structural Equation Modeling; Logistic Regression; Prevalence; Incidence; Linear Regression; Network Analysis; Textual Data Analysis; Machine Learning; Dendrogram; Exploratory Factor Analysis; Confirmatory Factor Analysis; Evidence of Validity; Invariance Analysis.