Health psychologists are specially trained to help people deal with the psychological and emotional aspects of health and illness, along with promoting healthier lifestyles.

Many of the current health challenges we face need to be addressed by illness prevention, health promotion and anticipatory care. Therefore, not only do we need to work to understand and support people with the psychological difficulties they may face from having physical health conditions, but we also need to understand and ameliorate the impact of lifestyle on health.

Most chronic diseases, including cancer, CHD, and diabetes, are related in part to health behaviour. Improving health behaviour is therefore a key challenge. Health psychologists are specialists in health behaviour change and working with people who have physical health conditions to help them cope and adjust to illnesses and treatments.

A health psychology approach adds value to programmes designed to improve health, improves our understanding of the complexities of barriers to change, and can more effectively design and implement evidence-based interventions to change health behaviour, targeting individuals, social groups and communities.

• Download the 'What is Health Psychology' presentation for a useful summary

There’s a lot that we do as Health Psychologists in Scotland.

• Download a brief overview: Health Psychology in Scotland

Health Psychologists in Scotland are involved in various areas of work. For example

Consultancy

An innovative Health Psychology Consultancy Service in North Lanarkshire won a national award at the Herald Society Awards in the Health and Social Care Integration category.

• Read more about this service on the NHS Lanarkshire website

Two Trainee Health Psychologists (Heather Locke and Catherine Murray) have been involved in the development of this service, especially in terms of how it met the BPS Qualification in Health Psychology Competencies

• Watch the video on how they did this

Government Links

Senior Health Psychologists Professor Marie Johnston and Diane Dixon were seconded to work in the Scottish Government to develop a Health Behaviour Change Competency Framework.

• Read more about this on the Health Scotland website

Long Term Conditions

Health Psychologist are involved in the multidisciplinary treatment of long term conditions such as cancer, diabetes, COPD, pain and cardio-vascular disease. Within this multidisciplinary treatment, health psychology focuses on developing and delivering effective self-management interventions to help to reduce the risk of and/or manage the condition, along with supporting patients to adjust to and cope with living with a long term condition and associated treatments and side effects.

Primary Care

Health Psychologists in Scotland are involved in innovative work in primary care, working alongside integrated care teams, including a GP, nurse, health care assistant and administrator (based on the Alaskan 'Nuka' model). Health Psychologists work closely with the teams, supporting patients to manage their long term conditions, make lifestyle changes and cope with stress. In this model, Health Psychologists offer brief, focused interventions and support the wider team to support patients with these challenges.

Public Health

One area Health Psychologists in Scotland work in is Public Health. To better understand the range of work undertaken by Health Psychologists in Scotland, and to explore future potential, a survey was undertaken in 2014.

• Read the report of the results 

Training

In Scotland, there is a national training scheme run by NHS Education for Scotland in conjunction with local NHS boards.

• Find out more information on the national training scheme

Case studies

• A CBT intervention to reduce anxiety, depression and breathlessness in people with COPD
• Behaviour Change Intervention for Looked After Young People
• Behavioural Health Consultants in Integrated Primary Care
• Developing a Lifestyle Behaviour Change Intervention for a Pilot Diabetes Metabolic Surgery Service
• Health Psychology Liaison Service for Health and Social Care
• Physical Activity Consultation Service
• The Heart Manual Department 
• Using Health Psychology to Develop Education and Training for Healthcare 
• Using Health Psychology to Develop Education and Training for Healthcare: Patient Safety Projects

One of our main aims is to support the continuing professional development of Members at various levels of career and experience.

We do this is a number of ways, including the provision of BPS accredited workshops and communicating with Members to assess CPD needs.

• Search for relevant BPS Professional Development

To contact the DHP Professional Development Lead please email [email protected]

Health Psychology is a rapidly growing, but still relatively young discipline. Careerpaths are diverse and there is strong competition for funded stage 2 trainingplaces and NHS health psychologist posts. Consequently, many early careerstudents and trainees find the transition from training to work challenging.In response to requests from early career members for more information aboutpossible career paths, DHP-S funded two student researchers in 2018 to producea series of career case studies. Individuals who had completed health psychologytraining in Scotland were surveyed and interviewed about their training, currentjobs, career aspirations, challenges and successes. The results of this project arecompiled in the present case study series which we hope you will find useful.

Case Studies

 A Guide for Public Health Teams - leafletA Guide for GPs and Health and Social Care Workers - leaflet

The Qualification in Health Psychology (Stage 2) is the independent route to completion of stage 2 training for those who are working in a heath-related setting.

Successful completion of the QHP (Stage 2) leads to eligibility for Chartered membership with the Society, Full membership of the Division of Health Psychology, and eligibility to apply for registration with the Health and Care Professions Council, the statutory regulator for practitioner psychologists in the UK.

• Find out more about the Qualification in Health Psychology (Stage 2)