Health psychologists make an important contribution to care

BMJ 1995;311:948 (7 October)

Letters

Health psychologists make an important contribution to care

EDITOR,--The editorial on the psychological care of medicalpatients¹ and the report to which it refers² serve to highlightthe issue of psychological care in physical illness. In callingfor an expansion of services, however, the editorial seems tosuggest that liaison psychiatrists are the sole professionalexperts.

While liaison psychiatrists are clearly experts in liaison psychiatry("the subspecialty of psychiatry concerned with clinical service,teaching, and research in non-psychiatric health care settings,"¹)psychological care is particularly informed by the disciplineof healthy psychology. Health psychology may be broadly definedas "the application of psychological methods to the study ofbehaviour relevant to health, illness and health care."³ Researchin this field has grown tremendously over the past two decades;this is reflected in the proliferation of journals, texts, andtaught courses in health psychology and related topics (forexample, behavioural medicine). Research in health psychologyhas already made . . . [Full text of this article]