Prof. dr. A.A. Kaptein
Medical Psychology LUMC
PO Box 9600
2300 RC Leiden
the Netherlands

Telephone: + 31 (0)71 526 2905
Email: a.a.kaptein@lumc.nl

Keywords
Medical psychology, quality of life, illness perceptions, asthma & COPD, self-management, medicine & literature

My inspiration
I am fascinated by the responses of patients – and the determinants of these responses – to their physical complaints and illnesses. These responses turn out to be associated not so much with ‘objective’ medical characteristics but rather with psychosocial characteristics. This implies that interventions aimed at those psychosocial characteristics affect the course of the complaints and illnesses. The way patients make sense of complaints and illnesses can be examined by studying the illness perceptions of patients: the subjective and idiosyncratic cognitions of patients about complaints and illnesses. Self-management by patients with chronic respiratory disorders and other chronic somatic disorders is the area of application of my research, which also translates into my teaching of medical psychology to medical students.