How to Conduct a Health Psychology Case Study

Case studies are important to conduct when you need to test a theoretical model in "real world" conditions. By enlisting participants, you can put them through certain tests to determine if your theories are correct or not, or if the theories need to be modified to be made more realistic. Creating a case study for health psychology follows the same methodology that the creation of a case study for any other academic pursuit would.

Instructions

• 1

  Define the theoretical conditions that you will be exploring in the case study. This can be in the form of a hypothesis or it can be an existing theory which you will be validating, or invalidating, by using the case study and its results.

• 2

  Define the characteristics that will be shared among the case study participants. In this case, the participants will need to have some sort of mental health or psychological issue in common.

• 3

  Create questionnaires and design psychological tests that the participants will have to complete. Questionnaires can take a quantitative form, which will measure numerical results, or qualitative form, which allows the participants to be more open and use adjectives and feelings to provide answers to the questions. Psychological tests should follow professional and ethical guidelines, while also focusing on the psychological condition under discussion.

• 4

  Record and aggregate the results of the tests, then analyze the results. Determine if the results support your theoretical claims or if the results reject your claims.

• 5

  Draft a report of the case study by first describing your theoretical model. Next, move on to describing the testing methodologies used in the case study. Finalize the case study report by including sections that analyze the results, and a final section that states whether the results support or reject the theoretical claims.