Evidence-based health psychology: racionale and support

• Autor(a) principal: Gidron,Yori
• Data de Publicação: 2002
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://scielo.pt/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1645-00862002000100001
• topic: Education of health psychologists; Evidence based health psychology

An evidence-based approach is encouraged to be adopted in health psychology for the following reasons: (1) It directs health psychologists to assess psychological factors that have been demonstrated in research to affect or to be affected by health conditions; (2) It can reduce therapist error in patient-assessment via use of reliable and valid measures in addition to clinical impressions; (3) Basing their knowledge on randomized-controlled trials (RCT), allows clinicians to recommend the use of new interventions with greater scientific and professional validity suitable to the "average patient"; (4) This approach will be more acceptable by the medical community. This review provides empirical examples for the importance of psychological factors in illness, and support for the efficacy of psychological interventions in health and illness such as cancer, coronary heart disease, preparation for surgery, pain-reduction and quality of life. Finally, implications for education of health psychologists are discussed.