Course unit details:
Critical, Creative and Comprehensive: Systematic Reviewing
| Unit code | PSYC69851 |
|---|---|
| Credit rating | 15 |
| Unit level | FHEQ level 7 – master's degree or fourth year of an integrated master's degree |
| Teaching period(s) | Semester 2 |
| Offered by | Division of Psychology and Mental Health |
| Available as a free choice unit? | No |
Overview
This unit focuses on the experience of being unwell and needing health care, and how psychology has a role in ensuring people access appropriate care and manage their illness to achieve the best possible health outcomes. The course will consider the role of illness perceptions in responding to heath threats; factors influencing help-seeking; and how psychology can help people manage illness and therefore treatment outcomes will be discussed. Students will have the opportunity to investigate an area relevant to the course in more depth, and develop research skills, in conducting this unit’s systematic review assignment.
Aims
- Provide a strong grounding in understanding the experience of illness and receiving health care from a psychological perspective.
- Drawing on theory and evidence, understand how psychological processes (e.g. forming illness and treatment representations) can influence (and be influenced by) response to illness, interactions with healthcare services and influence health outcomes.
- Develop students’ skills relevant to systematic reviewing: developing a protocol, searching the literature effectively, and synthesising relevant data.
Learning outcomes
By the end of the course unit, students will be able to:
- Understand the relevance of psychology to maximising health outcomes when patients and health care professionals respond to a patient’s health threat.
- Understand the role of illness and treatment representations when a person is making sense of a health threat.
- Critically evaluate evidence in understanding the patient’s response to health threats and the roles of health professionals in supporting patients seeking health care.
- Utilise a well-reasoned systematic review protocol to develop a search strategy
- Effectively conduct a systematic search of the literature.
- Develop systematic review skills which will be beneficial in studying in other areas, and vital to future professional training (e.g. stage 2 health psychology training).
- Develop a sympathetic understanding of how patients may understand and cope with health threats.
Teaching and learning methods
Teaching will be delivered over a 10-week period involving a mix of asynchronous materials and synchronous sessions. The synchronous sessions will be on-campus. Students will be provided with electronic resources on Canvas including PowerPoint slides, published papers, reading lists and web links. Students will be encouraged to use a discussion board on Canvas to discuss ideas with peers and staff and to ask questions.
Assessment methods
Assessment Task | Length | Weighting |
Systematic Review; Full Write-Up | 3000 | 100% |
Recommended reading
Key readings are listed below. Additional references will be provided with individual sessions.
- Greenhalgh T. (1997) How to read a paper: papers that summarise other papers (systematic reviews and meta-analyses). British Medical Journal, 315, 672-5.
- Harris, J.D., Quatman, C.E., Manring, M.M., Siston, R.A., Flanigan, D.C. (2014). How to write a systematic review. American Journal of Sports Medicine, 42(11), 2761-8. doi: 10.1177/0363546513497567. Epub 2013 Aug 7. PMID: 23925575.
- Higgins et al., (2021). Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Review of Interventions. https://training.cochrane.org/handbook/current
Study hours
| Scheduled activity hours | |
|---|---|
| Lectures | 20 |
| Independent study hours | |
|---|---|
| Independent study | 130 |
Teaching staff
| Staff member | Role |
|---|---|
| Stephanie Lyons | Unit coordinator |