Psychological factors affecting medical conditions
Psychosomatics
Somatization
Illness behavior
Cognitive-behavioral therapy
The main research areas concern:
- predictors of course and outcome
of somatic diseases, with particular attention to the role of
anxiety and depressive comorbidity, lifestyles, psychological
well-being, illness behavior, and perceived psycho-social support;
- the integration of dimensional and categorical instruments for
the assessment of the psychological factors affecting medical
conditions (questionnaires, clinical interviews);
- psychological response to illness, with particular attention to resilience, illness perception, and coping strategies;
- illness behavior and manifestations of abnormal illness
behavior (hypochondriacal spectrum, somatization, illness denial).
