Abstract

FLOREZ-ALARCON, Luis. Health Psychology in Colombia. Univ. Psychol. [online]. 2006, vol.5, n.3, pp. 681-694. ISSN 1657-9267.

An historical analysis about the evolution of health psychology in Colombia is made, taking as starting point some investigations carried out in the field of the behavioral medicine in the decade of the 70’s, and concluding with the description of 25 investigation groups that right now exist in many universities of the country, which carry out research activities in psychology and health. It is underlined that the development of this investigation field and practice in psychology have been bound more to the academic world than to that of the public health. An analysis approach is the practice area in health psychology, taking the fields of clinical health psychology and social health psychology. In the first one the interest is stood out mainly in related topics with evaluation and intervention in situations of chronic illness; in the second the interest is stood out in the topics of prevention of the illnesses and of health promotion .A description of the thematics that generated a genuine interest of collaboration among the different groups, and of the high-priority necessities that their members propose to advance at the moment in this work line are done.

Keywords : Health psychology; Behavioral medicine; Healthy behavior; Behavioral health; Colombia.

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