Bratislava will host a top-level health psychology conference
Bratislava, 31 January 2020: Health psychologists from all over the world will assemble in Bratislava from 25 to 29 August 2020 to participate in a prestigious annual conference of the European Health Psychology Society (EHPS). Comenius University in Bratislava is the co-organiser of this year’s event. The prestigious scientific conference will be held with the support of the Mayor of Bratislava Matúš Vallo and the Rector of Comenius University Marek Števček. Health researchers may submit their abstracts for oral or poster presentations by February 14.
Health psychology studies not only psychological factors that affect the maintenance of health, but also the management of diseases and people’s subjective experiences of them. Researchers deal with barriers in communication between patients and doctors, fear of medical interventions, refusal of vaccination, or even attempts to change lifestyles. This year’s annual conference is themed as Chartering New Territories: health psychology is becoming an increasingly important discipline today, bringing scientific practices to places, where only intuitive practices have prevailed thus far.
Major speakers include Mariët Hagedoorn from the Dutch University Medical Center Groningen, who is going to talk about an often-overlooked issue of relationships between the chronically ill and their carers. Daryl O’Connor of the University of Leeds, UK, will talk about the effects of stress as a silent killer. Geert Crombez of the Belgian University of Ghent will give a presentation on the role of psychology in chronic pain research. The domestic scene will be represented by Andrea Madarasová Gecková from Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, who, together with the clinical psychologist Dušan Selka, co-founded the field of health psychology in Slovakia. She will discuss the topic of research of patient stories in the online environment.
“We have been working on the Slovak candidacy since 2015. I am pleased that this year, Bratislava will follow in the footsteps of cities like Aberdeen, Padua, Galway and Dubrovnik and welcome hundreds of world’s leading experts in health psychology. I believe that we will prepare a high-quality event with valuable content,” said Radomír Masaryk, Chair of the Organising Committee of EHPS 2020.
“This conference is another contribution to Comenius University’s endeavours to do world-class science. The ambition of our university is to provide our researchers, students and the general public with the latest scientific knowledge and to open up the most up-to-date scientific topics,” said Marek Števček, the Rector of Comenius University.
More information about the conference can be found on the EHPS website or on the FB event page.
The European Health Psychology Society (EHPS) is promoting empirical and theoretical research in health psychology within Europe as well as the interchange of information related to health psychology with other associations and experts throughout the world.