Occupational Health Psychology Leiden University

Overview

The master's specialisation Occupational Health Psychology at Leiden University draws upon and integrates knowledge of several disciplines in psychology, with a clear focus on workers and their work setting.
This one-year specialisation focuses on the application of psychology to protect and promote the safety, health, and well-being of workers - with the aim to improve the quality of working life.

Occupational Health Psychology is designed to address the contemporary societal concerns for occupational health and safety. The term 'health' in 'occupational health psychology' does not only include workers' physical state, but also emotional, cognitive, motivational and behavioural aspects.

You will learn to look at the context of the workplace from different disciplines: Health Psychology, Social and Organisational Psychology and Applied Cognitive Psychology. This makes Occupational Health Psychology a very wide-ranging specialisation.

What you will learn

The major aim of the specialisation Occupational Health Psychology 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.

This specialisation Occupational Health Psychology provides you advanced training in practical skills for interventions in the field of work and health. This includes the acquisition of principles and methods relevant to, for instance:
* Health promotion and stress prevention in the workplace (worksite health promotion)
* Management of social psychological issues in organisational behaviour (e.g. leadership, motivation, dealing with diversity)
* Risk management of organisational accidents (engineering a safety culture)
* Optimisation of performance and work productivity (e.g. cognitive enhancement)

Career prospects

Students who complete this master's specialisation are qualified for any position requiring a degree in psychology. This might also include general research positions and academic policy-making positions, such as can be found in the following fields:

* Health care and social assistance
* Psychological advice organisations
* Consultancy
* Education and training
* Consultancy
* Laboratory environments
* Management or organisational development
* Research

Accreditation

Accredited by NVAO, the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders.