1st Department of Psychiatry, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, Faculty of Medicine

Lectures containing actual knowledge from Medcial psychology that has been presented from academic year 2023/2024, and has been dedicated to dental medicine students of the 2nd year. Theorethical backround is linked to practical lessons, and includes topics such as communication skills, normality and pathology of personality, abnormal psychology, psychotherapy, psychology of oral habits, stress and coping strategies, or psychology of emotions and cognition.

Psychology is becoming increasingly important in people's lives. It is significant to research human behaviour and how people interact with their environment, as well as how they develop physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially. A rising number of people have been both physically and mentally harmed in recent years as a result of cognitive, emotional, or behavioural disorders. It was determined that a study book on psychology for medical students was required.

Ružičková, Dragašek: Psychology in Medicine, Univerzita Pavla Jozefa Šafárika v Košiciach, ŠafárikPress, Košice 2023, ISBN  978-80-574-0223-7.

The book is primarily intended for first-year university students, but it is suitable for anyone who needs to learn. Students can find here the basic principles of learning, principles of how to preserve knowledge, how to concentrate without wasting time, how not to stress before a test or exam and many other practical tips. By acquiring simple knowledge, students will be able to learn effectively with the principles of brain-compatible learning in a way that they will acquire as much information as possible in the shortest period of time with maximum retention; that is minimal forgetting.

Adriana Boleková et al: How to study and not forget - Principles of brain-compatible learning, Univerzita Pavla Jozefa Šafárika v Košiciach, ŠafárikPress, Košice 2020, ISBN 978-80-8152-897-2.

Presented lecture includes texts on roots of psychotherapy (such as hypnosis, psychoanalysis, dynamic psychotherapy, TA) and modes of psychotherapy. It points out manz curative factors shared by every approach, ​ students will know more about differences among applied aproaches, also indications for mental health symptoms. Students will learn about basic approaches to parsonality, basic systems and relevant intervention to it.

Lecture introduces into the field of psychology. It describes he basic approaches and its goals. The stress in on clinical psychology with description of its basic tasks – psychodiagnostics and psychotherapy used in medicine. Primary focus of clinical psychologists is the diagnosis and treatment of patients with mental and behavioural disorders. They are also dental patients, with whom a denstist has to communicate when treating them.

A lecture from psychology and medical communication focuses now on topics about stress: how you decide something is stressful, what are psychological responses to stress, how can people adapt to stress, which personality and social factors help or hinder your coping processes, and how to develop a stress management program. 

The lecture explains how psychosomatic symptoms in patients develop, which psychosocial risk factors cause existence of psychosomatic problems, what is the role of psychological interventions in treatment and rehabilitation of patients. Furthermore, the most often occured disorders in population such as coronary heart disease, cancer and psychoneuroimunology issues are discussed in association wih psychological factors which may cause their incidence, influence their progression or play important role in treatment.
 

This lecture is aimed on the most often communication situations appeared between dentist and his/her patients that have to be solved during the dental treatment. It is also intended on the principles of their effective communication. The lecture contains part about situational factors influencing communication, and the last part including 9 most needed communication skills that dentists have to use in their daily practice.

This lecture focuses on verbal and non-verbal communication in medical settings, doctors´ and patients`s behaviors that contribute to faulty communication, adherence to treatment, difficult interviews with angry, anxious, distressed patients, and how to give bad news. At the end, questions and suggestions on training the communication skills, and improving doctor - patient communication are discussed.

Practical lesson focuses on knowledge from neuroanatomy, neurophysiology that the students studied in previous years at Faculty of Medicine. They should study the use of some most important neuropsychological methods revealing speech,memory, learning skills and cognitive dysfuncions in neurologic and psychaitric patients. They study how to help patients using PC neurorehabilitation programs.