Course Tutors
STUDENT PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
Ι. Midterm exam (30%), optional, including:
-
- Written multiple choice and short development test, or
- Presentation in class, or
- Group work – collage / poster creation
ΙΙ. Written final exam (100%) including:
-
- Multiple choice, true/false questions
- Short answer questions
- Development topics
LEARNING OUTCOMES
At the end of the course students will be able to:
- Understand the basic theories and concepts of the sociology of health and illness and apply them to the analysis of health and illness in social terms.
- Recognize the contribution of sociology in critiquing the biomedical model and discuss the importance of the social dimension of health.
- Analyze the social factors that influence health and illness and evaluate the role of health professionals and health care providers.
- Relate sociological theories to everyday nursing practice, understanding the dynamics of professional relationships and health care.
- Develop evidence-based arguments about the social dimensions of health, illness and the nursing profession using literature sources.
- Apply sociological concepts to case analysis of patients and health professionals.
- Collaborate in group work and presentations, developing communication and teamwork skills.
GENERAL COMPETENCES
The course aims to develop the following skills:
- Critical analysis and synthesis of information – Developing the ability to search, understand and critically read sociological texts and research.
- Understanding the social dimension of health – Familiarity with social inequalities in health and the role of health professionals in reducing them.
- Respect for diversity and multiculturalism – Recognition of how cultural and social factors shape the experience of health and illness.
- Communication and collaboration in a group context – Developing collaboration skills through assignments, presentations and classroom discussions.
- Developing social and ethical responsibility – Understanding the role of social and ethical values in health care and nursing practice.
- Promoting creative and inductive thinking – Applying sociological theories to the analysis of real-life health and illness cases.
- Ability to link theory and practice – Develop the ability to relate theoretical approaches to the everyday clinical and professional reality of nursing.
General Objective:
The course introduces students to the basic concepts, theories, and approaches of health sociology, helping them understand how social, cultural, and institutional factors shape the concept of health and disease. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of power and knowledge in shaping the “healthy” and the “sick” in society, as well as the connection of these issues with nursing and professional health practices.
This introductory course has the following sub-purposes:
- to introduce students to theories and concepts that will enable the understanding of health and disease in social and cultural terms;
- to develop critical thinking and reflection in students through the study of sources that will allow the understanding of the influence of the social environment on the development of health and disease, as well as of the nursing profession,
- to understand the position and identity of nursing in health sciences and services, through the presentation and analysis of social and qualitative studies,
- to highlight that the concepts of health, disease, the body and treatment do not have the same importance in all societies.
Course Outline
SYLLABUS
THEORY
Teaching units:
- Introduction to the Sociology of Health and Illness: Sociology as a scientific field, main theorists and approaches, health and society, historical development of the sociology and anthropology of health.
- The Historical Development of Medicine and Health Institutions: The development of scientific medicine, the concept of contagion and human contact, from the Asylums to the modern hospital, scientific medical discourse and the professional-patient relationship.
- Welfare State, Health and Social Policy: Social discipline and social policy in industrial modernity, from expulsion to social policy.
- Medicine, Power and Social Control: Disease and illness, the biomedical model, medicalization of the body and health, knowledge regimes and forms of power in medicine.
- Social Construction of Illness and the Other: The social construction of the “pariah”, when illness threatens society, disease as metaphor.
- Social Causation of Illness and Epidemiological Theories: Social factors and health, theories of epidemiological transition and fundamental cause.
- Lifestyles, Health Behaviors and Prevention: Health as an achievement, lifestyles and choices, beliefs about health and disease prevention, predispositions to action.
- Social Inequalities and Health: Social class, gender, ethnicity and health, the gradation of mortality and care as a variable.
- Sociology of the Body and Body Techniques: Social construction of the body, symbolism and perceptions of the body, body techniques and body surveillance according to Foucault.
- Health Care Professions and Roles: Professions and health care professionals, the relationship between professional and patient in the health system, nursing care of the sick body.
- The Experience of Illness and the Subjectivity of the Patient: Illness as social deviance and stigma, the “role” of the sick person, perceptions of illness in different cultural contexts.
- Chronic Illness, Disability and Biographical Disruption: Meaning and narratives of illness, selfhood and identity in illness, gendered dimensions of illness and treatment.
- Conclusions and Contemporary Challenges in the Sociology of Health: Reflection and synthesis of theoretical approaches, contemporary trends in the study of the sociology of health.