Module manager: Dr Keven Joyal-Desmarais
Email: K.Joyal-Desmarais@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable
Year running 2025/26
At least an upper second-class honours degree in Psychology or a discipline containing a substantial amount of psychology and research.
PSYC5917M Psychology of Patient Safety
This module is not approved as an Elective
Most health-related problems, such as the development or prevention of noncommunicable diseases (e.g., cancer, heart disease) or accidental deaths, are tied to patterns in people’s behaviours (e.g., sedentary behaviours, medication adherence). Improving societal health therefore depends on effectively changing people’s behaviours. This module offers an advanced discussion of how to build and evaluate interventions to change behaviours, covering methodological and theoretical frameworks for intervention development, and covering practical examples in applied settings.
This module will offer an overview of methodological and theoretical frameworks for developing, evaluating, and optimising interventions for health-behaviour change.
On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following learning outcomes relevant to the subject:
1. Propose/design a feasible, evidence- and theory-based behaviour change intervention project to address societal and health challenges within complex systems (environmental, economic, political, and social).
2. Critically analyse how an intervention works, with a focus on mechanisms of change and feasibility-related factors.
3. Use procedures and principles for optimizing interventions and how to apply them to a proposed empirical behaviour change project.
On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following skills learning outcomes:
4. Demonstrate effective communication, negotiation, team working, and collaborative problem-solving skills through active participation in the group project.
5. Produce a well-structured proposal for an empirical project that uses intervention evaluation methods.
*Key frameworks for behavioural intervention development
*Planning/designing behavioural interventions
*Piloting and feasibility testing
*Proposing behaviour change for practical impact
*Empirically evaluating interventions and how they work
*Optimising interventions
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lecture | 6 | 1 | 6 |
| Practical | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| Seminar | 5 | 2 | 10 |
| Private study hours | 132 | ||
| Total Contact hours | 18 | ||
| Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 150 | ||
Formative feedback will be given during weekly activities by the module leaders. Additionally, the first assessment (group presentation) will ask students to propose a behavioural intervention. They will receive feedback on this exercise which they will incorporate into the second assessment (proposal) which will require them to develop an intervention in a second domain and then take it a step further by additionally proposing an empirical project around it. Feedback on the first assessment will build directly towards the second assessment.
There will be dedicated session time during the first several weeks to plan and work on the group presentation. Group activities in subsequent weeks will allow students to practice skills towards the second assessment.
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Presentation | Group Oral Presentation: Present a behavioural intervention | 25 |
| Coursework | Individual coursework - proposal: Propose an intervention and an empirical project to evaluate and optimise it | 75 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100 | |
Evaluations for the group presentation will be made at the group level. The individual coursework (proposal) must be passed to pass the module.
The reading list is available from the Library website
Last updated: 30/04/2025
Errors, omissions, failed links etc should be notified to the Catalogue Team