Health Psychology and Psychological Health in Contemporary Society

Dear Colleagues,

Health psychology and, more generally, well-being, health, ability to cope with stressful events (both personal and social), etc., currently represent a very attractive field of studies for international scholars.

This Special Issue intends to pursue contributions concerning the in-depth study of these topical themes from a perspective that examines the entire life span of individuals, their families and support systems, reserving a specific look also for some professional categories (HCWs, teachers, etc.) that, more than others, are engaged in the management of the stress and outcomes related to traumatic events, individual frailties, chronic illnesses, etc.

Since the health of individuals is increasingly linked to the use of technology, it also aims to examine the potential and limitations of the use of such technologies as well as their impact on the psychological health of individuals.

In recent years, there has been a considerable increase in scholarly interest in the field of Health Psychology in the narrower sense but also in topics such as psychological health and well-being. This has happened in relation to both the evolution of society as a whole (involving areas such as work, education, media communication, etc.) and innovations in the medical practice itself, as well as extraordinary, unexpected and challenging events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

The current Special Issue aims to collect original articles that embrace these issues by extending the horizon of investigation to topics such as:

- Health, well-being, life quality, and stress management in relation to both physical and psychological problems, which may impact individuals over their entire life span;

- Health and emotional well-being in children, adolescents, and their family members, also when a physical or mental disease affects one of them;

- Health and emotional well-being of elderly people, their caregivers and family members;

- Health, well-being and coping strategies used to face stressful events, particularly impacting specific professional categories (social and health workers, teachers, etc.);

- Health-related communication in professional, non-professional, and media contexts;

- Relations between health psychology and social media.

Contributions from scholars interested in the psychological health of individuals with chronic diseases that force them to be constantly monitored, even through the use of electronic devices (e.g., wearable devices), are particularly welcome. If, on the one hand, these devices increase the possibilities for early and potentially beneficial intervention and can positively affect subjective well-being, and individual comfort, by reducing anxiety and stress levels, on the other hand, they can cause acceptance problems, more or less overt forms of resistance toward what is experienced as a form of hyper-monitoring, and consequently negatively affect individual well-being.

The submission of articles with multi-disciplinary (psychological, sociological, linguistic, etc.) and multi-method (qualitative and quantitative) approaches, are strongly encouraged.

Contributions must follow one of the three categories of papers (article, conceptual paper or review) for the journal and address the topic of the Special Issue.

Dr. Ilaria Riccioni
Dr. Maria Rita Sergi
Dr. Morena Muzi
Dr. Ramona Bongelli
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the Special Issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as conceptual papers are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Societies is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.