Health psychology in Croatia - Twenty years later

Health psychology - a relatively new branch of psychology applied in health care - has undergone rapid development during the past twenty years. The paper gives a review of the development of health psychology in Croatia in the field of education of health professionals and psychologists, in the field of everyday health care practice, and in the field of studying complex relations between psychological phenomena, health and disease. Insufficiently extensive education of psychologists in the field of health psychology and limited role of psychologists as professionals and experts in the system of health care have been identified as major obstacles to adequate development of health psychology in Croatia. The authors assume the development of health psychology will take a turbulent course in the years to come, mostly due to increased needs for psychological services in the health care system, especially in prevention and rehabilitation processes but also in the treatment procedures. Significant positive changes in the status of psychologists in the health care system are expected after the Law on Psychological Activity is passed and Croatian Psychological Chamber is established. These should enable the psychologists in the health care system to have a status in all respects equal to that of other health professionals. The dynamics of development of health psychology in Croatia depends on numerous factors, among which the possibility to extend undergraduate study curricula in health psychology and the need to organize post-graduate and continuing education of psychologists in health psychology are considered as the most important ones.