Department of Health, Sport and Wellbeing

About us

The Department of Health, Sport and Wellbeing combines academic and practice-based learning, with on-site work placements. This means you gain valuable real-life work experience while you study, helping you become a competent and highly skilled professional.

All our courses are accredited, giving you the very best start to your career. We have a strong focus on practical expertise, with hand-on experience inside and outside the university. You will be encouraged to take placements in industry, and where available, supervised work experience. This is designed to give you a clear idea of the kind of work you can undertake post-graduation. Of course, you may decide to follow an employment path that leads to further research in academia.

We aim to give you the skills and talents you need to meet the high standards in competitive fields.

Head of Department

Dr Scott Hardy

Study with us

Undergraduate Degrees

BSc (Hons) Nursing (Mental Health Nursing)

BSc (Hons) Psychology and Counselling (Joint Degree)

BA (Hons) Sport and Management

BSc (Hons) Sport and Exercise

BSc (Hons) Sport and Exercise Science

BSc (Hons) Strength and Conditioning

BSc (Hons) Sports Development and Coaching

BSc (Hons) Physical Activity and Health

Postgraduate Taught Degrees

MSc Counselling

We also offer Continuing Professional Development for practitioners through our Open Minds programme.

Postgraduate Research Areas

Please see below for our areas of research focus in this Division.

Or, if you are looking for something specific, check the full list of university-wide research opportunities here.

Facilities for counselling & mental health nursing

The Counselling and Interpersonal Skills Suite helps us teach our students interpersonal skills and therapeutic interventions. This area is designed as a therapeutic clinical environment, with comfortably furnished private rooms, a larger meeting space, and a central waiting area. It is is used by undergraduate and post-graduate students, and provides a confidential and natural environment for practice. We also use the suite for the assessments of skills, and therapy methods such as CBT.

On non-teaching days the rooms are used by the Tayside Centre for Counselling, a research clinic which provides student placements and counselling to the local community. We also use the rooms for research projects including Counselling for Sight-loss.

The Clinical Skills Suite has been created to mimic the healthcare environment, and is set up to allow students to learn core nursing skills and practices on campus. It provides opportunities for students to learn a range of practical skills for example, basic life support, vital signs (blood pressure, temperature, and pulse), the management of sensory impairments, aseptic technique, and administration of medication.

Male giving a female a counselling session

Facilities for sport

We have two designated Human Performance Laboratories and a Strength and Conditioning Laboratory for physiological measurement. There is also a biomechanics laboratory, all of which support teaching, research, elite athlete training and community partnership activity.

These facilities include:

EMG and ECG equipment.
Upper and lower body cycle ergometers.
Concept 2 rowing ergometer.
Treadmills.
Thought Tech Biofeedback systems.
Accelerometry.
Force Transducers.
Electronic Timing systems.
Metamax 3B Gas Analyser.
Servomex Analyser, four sets of Douglas Bags, a dry gas meter and a gas extractor.
Blood Analysis Equipment for lactate, glucose, haemoglobin, haematocrit and lipid profiles.
GSR Equipment and software.
BioHarness Telemetry System with LabChart.
Vicon 3D motion analysis system (high-quality video capture and full 3D-kinematic analysis).
Force platform.
Jump mats.
Segmental bio-impedance body composition analysis.
Linear position transducers.

There is also ready access to more specialist biochemical and molecular physiology equipment.

Group of people wearing sports clothes, standing in a gym hall

Our Research

Our research contributes to the Health and Care across the Lifespan and Sustainable Development & Inclusive Living Challenge Spaces. Our unifying focus is to inform the development and refinement of practice engagement through the allied health research we conduct.

Our Mental Health Nursing and Counselling researchers respond to the growing needs within society concerning challenges to mental health and wellbeing, and the provision of mental health care. Much of our research focusses on preparing professionals for practice through, for example, the creation of Pluralistic approaches to mental health care and the application of these to particular service-user and client groups.

Mental Health

Our research in mental health and counselling focuses on the development and delivery of effective interventions and support for people experiencing challenge, and the interplay between physical and mental health. Our research is community- and practice-based, supported by our on-site The Tayside Centre for Counselling that provides a venue for large-scale data collection as well as providing research-oriented counselling services to the local community and taking referrals from NHS GP services, clinics, and hospital units. The clinic hosts projects examining the role of emotional and psychological support for long-term health conditions, and the evaluation of Pluralistic Counselling. The clinic is part of a UK-wide BACP-supported Research and Training Consortium, involving other similar University hosted clinics and has strong alliances with external partners, enabling development of research into interventions used in mental health support. The clinic also provides a number of post-graduate students with opportunities for practice placement.

Our mental health nursing research centres on the reporting of Cause for Concern in healthcare settings, the evaluation and management of risk in mental health contexts, the disparity between management of self-harm and the experiences of those who experience self-harming behaviour, and the use and effectiveness of interventions for people living with dementia. External collaborations have included those with NHS Fife on the skills and training required for helping people living with Borderline Personality Disorder, and the creation of a recovery assessment tool for use by service-users, the Individual Recovery Outcomes Counter (I.ROC) with Penumbra. Our research approach has focussed on the use of advanced qualitative methodologies such as auto-ethnography and the Quasi-judicial and Ward Method of complex case-study data analysis. We also collectively engage in a number of systematic reviews of Mental Health Nursing practice to provide a landscape of the evidence base for the profession.

Biology of Health and Disease

We focus on cancer systems biology and reproductive health research in collaboration with partner Universities and stakeholders such as the NHS. Our cancer systems biology combines experimental data streams and theoretical modelling to characterise cell signalling network responses to therapeutic interventions and oxidative stress and have developed a statistical model of patient survival based on the spatial distribution of cells in patient tissue. Drawing on our expertise in electrophysiology, we have extended our focus to reproductive health and IVF failure in particular. We have elucidated one of the causes of IVF failure, resulting in a spin-out company developing routine standardised screening tests that can inform clinical decisions, fast track patients to alternative treatments and reduce IVF treatment failure. We collaborate with our Engineering and Food Science colleagues to engage in work on molecular and comparative physiology and nutritional health, including links to environmental and public health

Practice Engagement

We explore the engagement with, and experiences of, healthcare practice. We have shown the value of person-centred care, where contextualising care in a person’s situation is of particular importance, and interpersonal and complex trauma, relational and person-centredness are key. Our approach is typically based on detailed assessment of individual experiences (e.g., in-patient treatment for anorexia; how students with vision impairment experience inclusion and support in schools, experiences of harmful therapy). In population-based research on healthcare communication, we have assessed patient communication with practitioners in relation to symptoms indicative of cancer as a pathway to improve healthcare messaging and devised a taxonomy of explanations to aid healthcare practitioners in their care of patients with persistent physical symptoms. We have also explored broader perspectives in practice engagement, including the profiling of patient demand on the healthcare system and ethical aspects of healthcare, e.g., genetic modification of the human germline to improve health. We have extended our collaborative approach with our Psychology colleagues, combining our expertise in communication-based interventions and behavioural analyses, to examine the role of quantitative methods to characterise behaviour and enhance the quality of practitioner interventions.

Comparative physiology and nutritional health

We investigate the underlying molecular biology and physiology of fat deposition in common and grey seals, which can also serve as a model for human obesity and diabetes, as well as the impacts of environmental stressors, such as pollution on wild animals which can inform likely impacts on human metabolic health through dietary exposure and change. In collaboration with Food Science, and Sport and Exercise Science colleagues we are also interested in antioxidants and understanding the mechanisms through which food and physical activity interact and affect metabolic and cardiovascular health.

Applied and environmental microbiology

We use soil and plant-associated communities and model bacterial species to investigate the evolutionary ecology of biofilm-formation in experimental microcosms to better understand adaptation to natural and managed environments. We are also interested in the spread of antibiotic resistance genes in wild seal populations and the links this has with environmental and public health. The research group, led by Professor Graeme Walker, comprises PhD students co-supervised by colleagues from Abertay’s Departments of Built Environment and Life Sciences and Sociological and Psychological Sciences.

Health and Care Across the Lifespan and Creative Industries & Cultural Vitality

Our research contributes to the University’s Health and Care Across the Lifespan and Creative Industries & Cultural Vitality Challenge Spaces.

We have two areas of complimentary research: Biomechanics and Physiology; and the Social Science of Sport. This research explores:

Women’s sport equity.
Sedentary lifestyle risk factors.
Exercise and health training interventions.
High-intensity exercise.
Elite sports performance.
Healthy ageing.

Much of our research has a special emphasis on populations with protected characteristics (e.g. age, gender, and disability) in order to contribute to the duty of care in sport agenda, which has growing salience as an issue in contemporary society.

We work with a range of Sports clubs. The video here about Dundee United Football Club (DUFC) is one example.

Biomechanics and Physiology

Our work in this area explores the physiology and biomechanics of sports and exercise, particularly in relation to performance and injury. Research includes: the use of Omega-3 supplementation to improve joint stability and promote recovery from exercise; performance analysis of speed, flexibility and endurance capacity in elite footballers; the effect of high intensity interval training on physical health and mood in women; the effect of rapid weight loss on physical performance measures; the development of high intensity training exercise protocols to determine the minimum frequency of exercise required to promote meaningful adaptations in the body for health and performance; the use of neuromuscular electrical stimulation in a home-based setting for elderly populations; the impact of fatigue on lower limb kinetics; quantifying how different biomechanical factors influence sports performance; and exploring neurophysiology including motor control and disorders of movement.

Social Science of Sport

Our work in this area focuses on exploring the significance of sport to society and examines the psychology and sociology of sport. Research includes: the duty of care in sport agenda; improving health and physical functioning and promoting engagement in physical activity among older adults; body image and social physique anxiety on adolescents’ psychosocial health; exercise adherence and mental health; cognitive and emotional processes in sport; how individual differences influence behaviour in sport, health, mental health and wellbeing; inequity, inequality and discrimination in sport and exercise subcultures; gender equity for sports coaches; interpersonal perceptions and factors that influence sports coaching and coach education; youth sport; exploring how athletes narratively construct their identities.

We work closely with a range of stakeholders including Police Scotland, Active Schools, national governing bodies (e.g. SportScotland, Scottish Karate, Mountaineering Council for Scotland), sporting bodies (Scottish Rugby Union, Dundee United Football Club), charities (e.g. Age Concern and the Diabetes Research and Wellness Foundation) and SMEs (e.g. Edinburgh Biotech).