Occupational Health Psychology

Are you interested in the new but rapidly developing area within psychology, Occupational Health Psychology (OHP)? This specialisation refers to the application of psychology to protecting and promoting the safety, health, and well-being of workers. The purpose is to improving the quality of working life. OHP is designed to reflect the contemporary societal concerns for occupational health and safety.

Interdisciplinary

This MSc specialisation draws upon and integrates knowledge of several disciplines in psychology, to demonstrate the diversity of work within the inherently multidisciplinary area of occupational health and safety. Integrated disciplines are cognitive psychology, health and clinical psychology and organisational psychology. This interdisciplinary approach and the combination of theory with analysis of realistic case studies makes the Master’s specialisation in Occupational Health Psychology at Leiden University distinctive and useful for a wide range of careers.

Scientist-practitioner model

The Master’s Programme in Psychology gives you insight into in-depth study of theory and on the acquisition of professional and research skills. The distinctive feature of the Leiden programme is that its reaching is not restricted to only the functioning of psychological processes of work safety and health. Within a scientist-practitioner model these insights are always connected to their behavioural consequences. The aim is to understand self-regulation and behavioural control. In this way, not only do you develop your knowledge of psychology as a science, you also learn to apply this knowledge. You learn to understand practical problems and to develop effective interventions for dealing with these problems.

Aim of the programme

The major aim of the Occupational Health Psychology programme is to equip you with advanced training in research methods and professional skills. This will prepare you both for a career involving psychological research as well as for the application of scientific knowledge and methods in various professional settings.

Professional skills

This specialisation provides you advanced training in practical skills for interventions in the field of work, safety and health. This includes: the acquisition of principles and methods relevant to, for instance:

• Health promotion and stress prevention in the workplace
• Risk management of organisational accidents
• Engineering a safety culture

Research skills

In line with the profile of Leiden University as a research-intensive institution, the teaching programme is based on state-of-the art scientific research. It maintains a strong emphasis on the acquisition of academic and research skills. Training is provided in all relevant skills, including:

• Reviewing the relevant literature
• Applying theoretical knowledge to analyse practical problems
• Developing hypotheses and writing research proposals
• Designing and carrying out empirical studies
• Designing and evaluating the effectiveness of interventions
• Conducting advanced statistical analyses
• Presenting results and recommendations