Welcome to the Doctoral Program Mental Health and Behavioural Medicine!This Doctoral Program of Applied Medical Science (study code N790) provides advanced scientific research training and education in the field of mental health and behavioural medicine. The program is designed to train and prepare students for careers combining psychosocial and biomedical research with clinical practice in mental health and psychiatry. By training doctoral students in these areas the long-term goal of the program is to increase the university’s performance in applied research by allowing for a symbiosis of research and practice.
General Description and Aims
Psychiatry and behavioural medicine are of increasing importance in medicine: biological, psychological and social factors play an important role in the etiology, course and treatment of psychiatric and somatic disorders. Behavioural medicine is defined as the interdisciplinary field concerned with the development and integration of psychosocial, behavioural and biomedical knowledge relevant to health and illness and the application of this knowledge to prevention, etiology, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation. The scope of behavioural medicine extends from research efforts in fundamental bio-behavioural mechanisms to clinical diagnosis and interventions and to disease prevention and health promotion. Its multi-disciplinary approach involves not only clinical psychiatry and psychology but also neuroscience, sociology, anthropology, educational sciences and public health.
The main aim of the Doctoral Program of Applied Medical Science entitled “Mental Health and Behavioural Medicine” is to gain and create knowledge, leading to the compilation of a doctoral thesis. For this purpose, students will conduct scientific research under the supervision of experienced investigators. In Basic Courses, the students will be given the opportunity to acquire theoretical knowledge of psychiatry and behavioural medicine and study research methods commonly applied to mental health issues. Scientific papers published by other researchers will be critically discussed in Journal Clubs. Thesis Seminars will be held in order to address issues concerning current research of students. These educational components will help students put their own scientific work into the context of other scientific achievements to promote skilled independent work and application of scientific methods.
In addition, they will contribute to the development of sound presentation skills. In Practical Seminars students will be made familiar with the diagnosis and treatment of various mental disorders, and will be trained in interviewing patients. Further, they will learn how to design and conduct studies.